Twists of Fate
by LucyToo
Summary: An experimental AU idea.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note - This is an AU idea I was kicking around in my head. I wrote this out pretty fast just trying to bring it to life for people to see if it appealed to anyone other than me. _

_It's another take on the turtles-as-human idea. This is really just an intro, a sketch of the premise.  
_

_Lemme know what you think, or if the idea's just too out-there and too different from the turtles we know and love._

_And thanks!  
_

* * *

Leonardo asked about fate. 

He was just old enough to understand the word, but too young to grasp the power behind it. He asked his father if such a thing as fate were really possible.

Yoshi thought for a while before answering, as he always did when a question was important.

His mind travelled back to a day nine years ago. An accident. A jar of turtles, a rat. Sewers. And a pink, dull, heavy ooze from one of two jars that fell with them all into the sewers. A green jar, unbroken, lay nearby.

Did he believe in fate? He was a rat. Had spent a long life as a rat. But he took the turtles, coated in the pink slime, and they slept a night in his burrow in the sewers.

When he awoke the next day his fur had fallen out. His muscles had shifted and elongated. His powerful nose had shrunk, his senses dulled.

He looked down at his larger body and saw the shape of his Master, Yoshi, and every other human he had ever seen.

Human.

The sounds of cries took him from his self-discoveries, and he found that the small turtles he had carried with him were changed also.

Babies.

No shells. Skin where scales had been. Wisps of hair on their heads. Different subtle shades of skin tones.

Four babies.

He fed them from garbage aboveground, wrapping himself in discarded clothes from a dumpster and hardly attracting attention on the streets.

As the days passed and every hour brought a heightened intellect and awareness, he came to realize that continuing as he was was impossible.

A human male raising four children in a sewer? He had to embrace his new form. It was a gift given to him and the babies he had found. He had to accept the gift and not waste it.

He had to live.

He learned of the world by walking the streets and reading newspapers.

Fate? He read a news article about a woman who was arrested for putting an unwanted baby in a trash can. That article mentioned that a hospital downtown would take abandoned children no questions asked.

Heavy-hearted, he bundled his turtle children in rags and walked through the doors of the hospital. Three of them he left. One, the quietest, solemnest of the group, he kept. His heart couldn't stand to part with them all.

He learned the world, with his one charge to care for. In the remains of his master's property, carried by a faithful rat and hidden in his burrow, he found identification. He became Hamato Yoshi in his master's place.

He named his boy Leonardo. He found work, he studied the arts his master had taught him, and then he taught those arts to others.

He bought a small storefront space and taught children defense and philosophy. His son aged. And Yoshi would dream more often than not of three other human-shaped turtle children in the world, given up, torn from their brother and each other. He wondered what had come of them.

Fate directed his guilt. Fate led him to volunteer to mentor fostered children. He worked with the troubled, the delinquent, the abused. He devoted hours in the evenings to spreading his knowledge with boys who badly needed it.

And in every face he looked for signs of the babies he had once called his. Any clue that the souls of those children originated with his own adored Leonardo.

All of those things, every twist in paths led to where he was - pink slime instead of green, turtles in a jar, a rat who knew enough to become human. A news report of an arrested mother, a hospital that took his children.

Every step could have been different. Every difference would have meant a completely changed life.

When Leonardo asked him, solemn and studious, whether such a thing as fate existed, he already knew the answer.

He looked at his young son and spoke sincerely. "Fate goes by many names, Leonardo. Fate can be called luck, or coincidence, or God. But in all those forms, never doubt that there is a higher spirit to the order of the world."

Leonardo listened carefully, as he always did. Yoshi left him to his thoughts, going out front of his store to meet a new child the foster system was sending to him to teach.

Fate was in his mind, for that reason, when he first greeted the social worker he worked with most often and was introduced to a sullen, grey-eyed boy named Don.


	2. Chapter 2

_End of the longest frigging prologue ever written._

_This is just where the story starts. _

* * *

There was nothing remarkable about Don at first glance. Nothing to say that he was different from other child. 

Then again, there had never been anything different about Leonardo.

He was thin, but that was typical of the children Yoshi worked with. They tended to be neglected in some way, and that neglect was at the heart of the behavior that got them sent to him. Sullen, as most were, but Yoshi saw intelligence in his slate gray eyes.

Once the social worker had introduced him and left the two alone, Yoshi asked the boy the same question he always asked new children.

"Why are you here?"

Usually the boys would say something harsh in response, something to tell Yoshi right away that they didn't want to be there and resented being sent.

Don thought about the question.

He skipped the usual instant responses - 'because Prentiss is a bitch', some said about their social worker, or 'I didn't have no choice'.

Don answered slowly, and he answered the question he knew was intended, not settling for the easy, defiant answer. "I'm getting in trouble more, and they don't know how to fix me."

Yoshi was delighted by the answer, though of course he didn't let it show. He took Don by the shoulder and led him into the back, to meet Leonardo and listen to the usual talk Yoshi gave about what they would be doing while he was there.

No sparks lit the air when Leo met Don. Leo was solemn, and Don was thoughtful, and they gave each other that searching look that children always gave on meeting other children their age, and Leo stuck out his hand.

Don shook and then Leo was out of his mind. He looked around the inside of the dojo, wide-eyed. Yoshi could tell that those eyes saw most everything, not just the weapons and training pads the boys usually focused on. Don saw the candles, the certificates on the walls, the painted characters.

Yoshi let him look minutes longer than he let most boys, and then sat him down to begin their lessons.

In their first lesson, Yoshi pinpointed what Don's problem stemmed from. Every single word Yoshi spoke, every fact about the meditations they would try and the history behind them, was devoured by the boy. Absorbed entirely. Thought about. Questioned with intelligence.

The boy was starved for knowledge.

As good a problem as Yoshi could ever have wished. Here was a boy who was restless, angry, because the way some families starved their children physically he felt starved mentally. He hungered to know things, to understand the world. He asked questions of everything, and when Yoshi had him try and guess the answers his guesses were as good as any an educated adult might offer.

Don was a perfect student. If he was distracted easily, Yoshi forgave him - Leonardo might have been awed by the arts Yoshi taught, but Don's mind wanted more. Wanted everything. He would interrupt a session with a sudden question about some fact he heard on TV and had to know more about.

He was fostered with a family who actually seemed to care for him, and when his sessions with Yoshi worked so effectively to soothe his sullen anger, the family let him keep attending even when he had to start charging his usual fees.

Leo and Don seemed to get along. Leo was intimidated by a lot of the boys - they were hard and knew too many things about a world Yoshi protected his son from. But Don knew about everything, and he and Leo could share stories nonstop when Don's foster parents were late in getting him, as they almost always were.

One day Yoshi sat in his dojo, preparing to take on his next ward, when Leo came in from the front wide-eyed and excited.

"Father!"

"Don has left?"

"His parents got him." Leo was vibrating, which was odd for the quiet boy. "Father!"

Yoshi regarded him, amused, and when Leo dutifully held back from speaking about whatever excited him, Yoshi nodded his approval.

"Father, Don's had the dream too!"

"The dream?" Yoshi studied his son. "Your dream?"

Leo nodded, eyes round. "The exact same thing! He told me before I even could say anything about it!"

Leo had had the same odd dream since he was old enough to tell his father about them. He described it uncertainly, though he had words for everything else he'd ever talked about.

"It's like I'm looking at the world, but my mind works differently. I see things less clearly, but I can feel them more. I don't know, it's strange. It's like trying to talk about the world but suddenly only knowing four or five words. I see and understand things differently."

Like an animal. Yoshi had dreams himself of the old days, before the change. But his life had been long and full before that day. The turtles had been infants, yet it seemed they - Leonardo at least - retained some subconscious memory of life before their own change.

So this news, this discovery that young Don had experienced the same thing, was a jarring hope for an old man who longed to amend a mistake he'd made years ago, surrendering children only he could have understood.

He had to ask Don about the dreams, to see how similar they truly were.

But first, he had a new child to meet.

* * *

Michael was a surprise as much as Don had been. Also unlike most of the foster children he worked with, Mike was a tall, smiling, bright-eyed boy. Yoshi didn't at all mind dealing with someone who didn't see him as a punishment, but he couldn't figure out at first why Mike would be sent to him for behavioral lessons.

He laughed a lot, and if his focus didn't lend itself towards meditation Yoshi didn't mind it so much. Children came into their enlightenments in their own ways.

Mike joked and smiled, looked on everything with bright, optimistic eyes.

Yoshi called Miss Prentiss, at a loss for what he was supposed to be teaching a boy who seemed better adjusted than any he'd ever taught.

"He's been sent to ten different families, Yoshi. Look at him - he's gorgeous. Every rich couple in New York who wants to adopt zooms in on him like he's a magnet and they're metal. But they always bring him back. They say he's wonderful most of the time, but when he's not, he's absolutely horrible."

It took Yoshi a while to see that side of Mike. He taught him basic lessons, introduced him to Leo as he did all the boys. Leo adored Mike, Yoshi saw easily. Something about the bright, friendly boy drew out Leo's own neglected childlike side. He always asked if Mike would be by that day, even on days when his best friend, Don, was coming.

But one day Prentiss dropped off a different boy. Red-faced, breathing hard, tense and wound. She left him with apologies to Yoshi, but he waved them off. There was no way to get to the heart of trouble if he never saw Mike in a bad mood.

Bad mood. It became an understatement for what Mike was that day. He couldn't speak in full sentences. His eyes darted around in constant movement. He was nothing of the smiling boy he usually was.

Yoshi, because talking wasn't working, turned Mike loose on the training bags.

Mike fought, punched, yelled. Struck so hard, for so long, that he ended up coated in sweat, hoarse, nearly hyperventilating.

Yoshi watched, silent, letting him beat the bag until he was exhausted. Troubled by this boy suddenly in a real, deep way. Anger like that had deep wells, and to be able to cover it so well, so often, by such happiness…

His problems were real, and Yoshi had neglected him by treating him so far as a pleasant child who didn't require much work at all.

When Mike's punches finally slowed, and his contorted face began to relax, Yoshi looked away to see Leo in the doorway, watching.

Yoshi went to his son instantly.

Leo was wide-eyed watching his favorite new playmate lash out, but Yoshi should have known better than to worry about Leo understanding.

Leo looked at his father, but moved into the dojo past him as Mike finally slumped against the wall, panting, exhausted.

Leo went to Mike without fear. He crouched beside the usually smiling boy.

Yoshi heard his words and was stunned.

"When you dream," Leo asked him seriously, "the world seems different, doesn't it?"

Mike nodded without even looking at him.

Whatever Leo saw in that fit of rage that seemed familiar he didn't tell Yoshi. Whether he had recognized something familiar in Mike before and just chose that moment to ask him about it, he never said.

Yoshi didn't pry. If Mike was one of those lost babies of his then it was only right the boys be allowed their connection without a lot of prying.

If Mike was one of his babies, Yoshi had even more need to get to the bottom of his problems.

He never spoke to the boys of what he thought. Leo had no idea his own origins, and to explain to these troubled children that they began their lives in a pet store rather than a hospital would be cruel.

Leonardo would probably take it as a lesson. A metaphor of some kind that he didn't understand.

Mike didn't talk about his rages. He slumped that day on the floor of the dojo, and Leo sat with him for a while. They didn't talk after Leo's soft question. Yoshi waited for Mike to stir, and sent him to shower in the back.

When Mike returned from his shower, he was smiling and bright-eyed. He acted as if his earlier mood never happened, even seeming confused when Yoshi asked him about it.

Trouble. Yoshi saw the real danger in the boy's mind, and feared at it.

He called Prentiss and asked if she wouldn't switch Mike's days to match the days Don came. Instinct told him that Don's sullen intelligence, Mike's deep rages, and Leo's too-adult mind could all be helped by each other's presence.

He thought that it might have been his own wishful thinking. Seeing his turtles in the eyes of normal children. But there was no doubting that the boys had a connection, even if it was one that only they themselves understood.

* * *

At first Rafael seemed to be typical of the delinquent children Yoshi saw most often, if a concentrated version.

He was small, undernourished, black-eyed and black-haired. His hands were fists most of the time.

A pretty usual story, Prentiss told Yoshi. He was adopted by a couple who already had a brood of foster children. They slipped through the cracks of the overburdened child welfare office, taking on kids for the checks that were sent. Neglected, hungry, dirty, too many children were given to them and treated as cash registers for government funding.

They weren't sent to school, rather learning occasional random lessons from the 'parents' - who barely spoke English and only taught their children Spanish. The couple was exposed when one of their older children went to a neighbor begging for food for his brothers.

Sent back into the system when he was five, Rafael was already trouble. He was disobedient, angry. He came back from more than one family bruised, and more than one family claimed that he was impossible to deal with without using force.

A childhood starved and neglected kept him small - at nine he could have passed for seven - and like a great many small, abused children, Rafael overcompensated with anger and force.

Leo had wandered into the dojo during Rafael's first session, and though Rafael had shown no interest in the lesson Yoshi tried to teach he jumped up the moment another boy came in, yelling about how this was his time and his lesson. He cursed in English, in Spanish. He took up one of the shoes Yoshi had ordered him to take off and threw it.

Not an unusual boy, unfortunately. Rafael was as close to normal as Yoshi was sent.

But there was something about the boy that utterly fascinated Yoshi. His mood was so black so constantly that the sheer energy it took to maintain it was a wonder. Rafael never sulked when he could shout. Never sat in a funk when he could stomp about and cause havoc.

The first thing about Rafael that struck Yoshi as different was that he hesitated to use the bag.

Punching the bag was an early exercise for new kids. All of them loved it. These children, whether happy or sad or angry, were all helpless in their lives. Their future was always uncertain, always out of their control. Each of them jumped on the chance to lash out, to hit at something that gave them the rare feeling of being in control.

Rafael was different. He wanted nothing to do with the bag. Not from any hesitance to use violence - that was more than obvious. Not from any lack of anger. Anger seemed to be all that kept the slight boy moving.

Yoshi tried more than once to get Rafael to hit the bag. So much could be told from how a boy performed that simple exercise. Leonardo hit with precision, worrying about footwork and how he held his fists. Too precise to be violent.

Don was fascinated by the process of it. He seemed to take it as a chance to teach himself more about his own body and what he might be capable of.

Mike went two ways. Either he was in his usual cheery mood and he took it as a sport, twirling and crying out like any boy who watched too many kung fu movies, or he was in his rare black moods and simply launched at the bag until one of them surrendered.

It told Yoshi a lot about each boy. Rafael's refusal to even use it was a puzzle that made the boy stand out among more than a handful of equally angry, defiant delinquents.

Whatever it was, he had to figure it out fast. Prentiss told him outright that Rafael was close to going into detention. He was too violent. No one wanted the boy, and children in the state home feared him. He stole, he lied. He was vicious, she said. Yoshi was his last chance.

He sat the boy down after a couple of completely unsuccessful sessions and asked why he wouldn't use it.

Rafael just shrugged, braced, like a boy who was used to being hit for refusing adults what they wanted of him.

"You'll hit the other children, though you know you'll be punished. Why not take your anger out on something you're allowed to strike against?"

Rafael looked at him with dark eyes and answered finally in his lightly Spanish-touched accent. "Just because you're allowed to hit something doesn't mean you should."

An odd profundity to come from a child like him, and Yoshi was caught by it. "Why do you suppose you shouldn't?"

"Bag can't hit back."

Simple answer, but it told Yoshi a great many things about the boy.

Rafael was angry, but though he considered everything a fitting target for his anger he refused to attack something that couldn't fight back. He understood the injustice of someone beating something just because they could.

Abuse was common in foster homes. Too common. Common enough to make Prentiss a hard woman before her thirtieth birthday, and to send Yoshi into occasional spirals of depression for the frequency of the bruises he saw on the bodies and minds of his children.

Mike, he thought, was abused. If not currently than in the past. Enough to put something dark into his subconscious that had to bubble over now and then.

But Yoshi's job was to deal with their anger, to keep them out of further trouble. He was frustratingly powerless to heal the other factors in their lives.

* * *

Yoshi had no suspicions that Rafael was one of his children. Perhaps his accent or the Spanish that flavored his words shut Yoshi's mind to the option. Whatever it was, when Yoshi first saw to it that Mike and Rafael came at the same time, he was hoping that they might understand each other based on anger alone.

And they did, but in no way he predicted.

Rafael threw his usual fit that another child was taking Yoshi's attention from him - though he resented the lessons and never tried hard to learn - and he came at Mike yelling.

Mike, smiling and as pacifying as ever, tried talking to him. Impossible with Rafael, so Mike tried to ignore him.

Then Rafael hit some sensitive spot with his words, or his small fists, and Yoshi for the first time saw Mike's mood change.

Mike got very still, and his eyes went blank. His face, so expressive and animated, hardened into the mindless rage he had come in with once or twice.

He flew at Rafael the way he attacked the bag.

They fought.

Yoshi made no attempt to stop it. He stood back and made sure they didn't cause any serious injuries, but from the start it was apparent that though they didn't pull any punches they were hardly hurting each other as badly as they could have.

They ended up scratched, bleeding, tired, rolling around the mat unwilling to surrender.

Rafael came out on top, because Mike's anger was temporary. A flare to Rafael's slow-burning candle.

But Rafael didn't top him with any childish smugness. There was no victory in him when he rolled to his feet and held out a hand to Mike.

The two of them recognized something in each other; that was clear. But just what became apparent when Leo, stirred by the sounds of fighting, came down from their small upstairs apartment and watched.

Mike was the one who spoke, though, directing sudden smiling words to the angry, small boy who was so close to being abandoned to delinquent homes and prisons.

"You see it too, don't you? At night. You see a different world."

Rafael stared at him, for maybe the first time not responding instantly with anger or belligerence. "I don't know what I see," he said finally.

And Yoshi had his boys back.

There could be no doubt, not once they had all four been introduced and they spent an hour simply talking in half-sentences about the dreams they shared that no one else had ever understood.

Fate, he reflected as he sat and watched and listened. Fate had brought them back. Fate had led them into a system, hurt them in different ways, and returned them to their first father for healing.

But they weren't his children anymore. None but Leonardo belonged to him, and to keep the others - and he fully intended to keep them in some way, to let them be brothers again in whatever way he could - would be a challenge.

Don had a foster family of his own. Mike was running out of time with him - the city only sent the boys to him for so long. Rafael was in danger of being put into detention.

He had work to do to keep them together. But the miracle had been finding them at all. After that, anything seemed possible.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note - There is talk of abuse of children in the worst kind of way in this chapter. Don't read if you're sensitive to it. It's not detailed or anything._

* * *

If he had to say who his best friend was, he wouldn't know who to pick. 

Don was his best friend for talking to. They spent a lot of time together, since Don's foster parents worked a lot and would let him stay at his lessons late. But Mike was his most fun friend. Mike laughed and made jokes and always thought things were awesome, except when he got mad. But he didn't get mad a lot.

He wasn't sure which he'd pick, but it was okay. His father told him he wouldn't have to pick. He said boys were allowed to have as many friends as they wanted.

Leonardo had never had friends before. Not really. Nothing like Mike and Don.

He didn't like Rafael a lot. Rafael was always mad.

But for some reason his father liked for all four of them to spend time together.

Rafael was teaching Don some Spanish, and he and Mike would talk sometimes about things. But Leo never found anything to talk to him about. His father said everyone had common ground, and it was just a matter of finding it.

They were both the same age. They were both orphans - Leo knew Yoshi wasn't his real father. But that wasn't enough.

He didn't complain to his father, though. He knew Yoshi wanted them to get along, and he was always disappointed when Leo said he didn't like someone. He always said it meant that Leo wasn't trying hard enough to understand them.

Leo worried about Mikey a lot. Rafael was just angry and that was how he was, but Mike? Mike got angry and didn't want to.

He hated being mad. He got so angry he couldn't control himself, and he hated it. He told Leo that he didn't know where it came from, and he wanted to be happy.

Leo wanted him to be happy, too. There weren't a lot of happy kids except in Yoshi's daytime classes. The ones that Miss Prentiss brought in were never happy.

Even Yoshi didn't know why Mike got mad. He told Leo he could tell that Mike had an optimistic personality, but something must have happened to him that he hadn't really dealt with.

"I know what it is," Rafael said one day, when Mike didn't show up because he was under punishment for tearing his sheets back at the state home.

Leo just rolled his eyes. Raf always said he knew everything about everything. "You do not."

"Sure I do. I've been around."

"Fine, what is it?"

Raf leaned in. "Promise not to tell your dad?"

Leo glared at him. "No."

Raf's eyes rolled. "Fine, baby. Never mind."

"Okay, what?"

"Forget it."

Leo warred with himself for a minute. Helping Mikey was more important than telling his dad one of Raf's stupid ideas, though. "Okay, I won't tell."

Raf looked back, eyebrows raised. He came in close, leaning in to look up at Leo. "Better not. He wouldn't care anyway."

"Why not?"

"Because adults never do."

"So what is it?"

Raf lowered his voice, conspiratorial. "Mikey's getting fucked."

Leo glared at him and told him to forget it and stormed off.

Yoshi taught him all about words like 'fuck'. They were rude words that rude people said when they didn't know better words.

Raf used them a lot.

Leo forgot about Raf and his words. At least, he tried to.

But he was curious. Yoshi told him that often - he was a curious boy, who had to know things even if he didn't understand them.

Anyway, Mike was his friend and he didn't get any better in his lessons with Yoshi. When he was in his bad moods now and then he didn't seem to remember anything about lessons. He didn't say much of anything at all.

So one day he went to Yoshi.

"You know how you said I could ask you anything, even questions that might make you mad?"

His father seemed amused by the question. He sat down on Leo's bed beside him. "Of course. Have I ever gotten angry at you for wanting to learn?"

"No." Leo fidgeted all the same.

"Then ask. Waiting gives the seeds of doubt time-"

"-to become a garden. I know." Leo sighed. "Okay. What does…what does 'fuck' mean?"

Yoshi's eyebrows flew up and he turned a little pink. "It has a few meanings, I believe. But there are always better words to express any of those meanings."

"I know."

"Where did you hear this word?"

Leo shot him a look.

Yoshi smiled. "Rafael, then."

"You can't teach him not to talk like that?"

"It's hard to undo certain habits." Yoshi sounded unconcerned. Then again, Yoshi let Raf get away with a lot of things. "Why does the word concern you now? I've sheltered you, perhaps, but you must have heard it before."

"He said it about Mikey. And he said it like it was a bad thing, but when I heard it used before…" Leo shrugged. "Raf said the reason why Mike got so mad was that he was getting…you know…that word?"

Yoshi pondered that for a moment.

Then his back straightened and his face went pale and serious. "He said Mike was getting fucked."

The word sounded so weird coming from his father's mouth, but Leo nodded.

Yoshi stood and left the room.

Leo went to sleep that night still confused.

* * *

"Last year," she said in his ear, her voice a thin sigh through the phone. 

Yoshi sank into a chair, dismayed. "Why didn't you tell me? I always ask for the histories of the boys you send me."

"It was never proven, Yoshi. I can't tell you unsubstantiated rumors. Besides, you know by now how often that kind of thing shows up in these boys' pasts."

_Not one of my boys_, Yoshi wanted to answer. Instead he simply tightened his hand around the cord of the phone. "What happened to him?"

"It's the same as a thousand kids. He was being fostered by a couple. One of his teachers at school was worried about his behavior and asked him a few questions that led her to go to the police about the husband, and he was returned to us. We couldn't prove abuse. We hardly ever can, you know, but even Mike wasn't helping."

"What do you mean, wasn't helping?"

"He never admitted the abuse. To be honest, I think he doesn't remember it. I think somehow he's blocked it from his mind."

"Of course he has!" Yoshi stood up in frustration, pacing his small kitchen. "That's exactly where this anger comes from! A mind can never erase trauma such as that, it simply buries it. But bubbles always surface."

"What do you want me to do, Yoshi? Mike doesn't remember it and I for one am glad he doesn't. I've seen a lot of boys turn into the worst kinds of abusers themselves, falling back on a history with a bad family as an excuse. He has the right to get angry."

"It's not…" Not healthy. Not at all.

But he didn't go on. He let her go back to work, and he sat for a while in his kitchen, lost in thought.

Of course he knew these kids were hurt too often. He never understood it. There was work required to foster children. Why go through the effort just to injure and molest and traumatize?

Why one of his boys? Why?

It was the most horrible cycle, and Yoshi himself had set it into motion.

It hurt him, so badly he canceled an evening class and lost himself to quiet meditation to calm his spirit.

That bright-eyed, golden, smiling boy. What might he have become if Yoshi had kept him? The same gentle spirit without the anger. Pure. Rare.

Damn him and his choices in the first year he was a human.

He could never regret keeping Leonardo, of course. His boy's devotion and curiosity and openness to every new thing he saw was a constant refresher for Yoshi's spirit. He learned from the boy as much as he taught him.

But he could have raised Mike as well.

Mike. It might have been short for Michelangelo if Yoshi had held on. A fitting match for his Leonardo.

He knew, of course, that such speculations were useless. Regrets were pointless. He had made a mistake, perhaps, but he had made the mistake from a place of sincerity. He hadn't doubted that his choice was what was best for the children.

He had been wrong.

But that mistake was forgivable. He had been out of his depth those years ago, struggling to make a place for himself. It would have been entirely irresponsible to hold on to four children.

All four. God, what might they have been? Don's unquenchable need to understand the world…Yoshi would have gladly embraced the challenge of teaching him, and could have learned with him. How brilliant might he be by nine if he had had support?

Rafael…what in his life made him so angry? What might he be if raised by Yoshi? Would he be bigger if he had a body that had never known starvation and neglect? Would he still be so angry?

Having the boys so close was salt on the wounds of his past. Yoshi felt it as a constant weight.

Did they have a right to know their history? Would they despise him if they came to find he was the one who surrendered them into the system they were trapped into?

It was the worst kind of torture. Worst because he knew he would never be rid of it. He would never lose track of the children again, even if keeping them near hurt him.

* * *

He shut the door on Mike's next lesson, which Leo would know meant Yoshi expected full privacy. 

He spoke to the boy, soft and earnest, about abuse. Statistics and facts, and how the victim was never to blame for his own abuse. How adults could confuse and hurt and lead children to believe they were somehow at fault.

Mike just listened, appearing thoughtful but with the glow in his dancing eyes that meant he was only listening to another lesson.

He didn't connect the words to himself. His cheer held, and when Yoshi ran out of words he jumped to his feet lightly and asked if he could use the bokuto Yoshi was training him with.

Yoshi knew it would take time, but all the same his heart was disappointed.

His guilt held, so much that he took the bokuto from Mike's hands. "Perhaps you're ready to begin training on a new weapon."

Mike's already bright smile split his face bigger. "You mean the sticks, don't you?"

Since the day he began practice the nunchaku on the wall had fascinated him. He begged to learn to use them, but Yoshi refused. He hadn't realized that Mike would be one of his own boys, and no temporary student.

He went to the wall and took down the nunchaku. "You are energetic and your reflexes are quick. I think these might be a proper fit for you after all."

Mike crowed, bouncing on his toes. But when he took the single pair from Yoshi's hand he forced himself to still and hold the weapon respectfully. "Thank you, Master," he said with a bow, and a smile he still couldn't hide.

* * *

Michael was an easy child to place, Prentiss told him, but a hard one to keep settled. The flares of temper he had were more than parents knew how to handle, and even his smiling blond-haired and round-cheeked beauty couldn't keep him appealing after a few of those tantrums. 

Yoshi asked Leonardo, of course, before he did anything. He spoke sincerely to his son and was answered sincerely, because that was how father and son had always been.

Leonardo expressed a single worry about becoming less important in his father's eyes, and seemed to believe Yoshi's reassurance that such a thing was impossible.

After that was settled, Leonardo's pleasure at the idea was plain.

Yoshi called Prentiss the next day and asked to begin the adoption process.

* * *

Leo couldn't help a smug grin when he saw Raf. "You were wrong, you know." 

"About what,_ cabron_?" Raf had come out of his lesson smirking as always, like he didn't listen to a word Yoshi ever said about humility and kindness.

Leo didn't get mad that time, though. He was kind of smug himself. "You said my father wouldn't care what you said about Mike."

Raf's smirk vanished. "You told him?"

"Of course. I tell my father everything." Leo spoke proudly.

"Of course you do, you lying _pendejo_." Anger was already making Raf tense. "You fucking kiss-up."

"Stop talking like that." Leo's voice was sharp. "And you were wrong. You said dad wouldn't care, and he does. He says he's bringing Mike here to live with us so he'll never be in that state home or with people who will hurt him ever again."

Raf snorted, his cheeks red. "Oh, of course. Of course Mikey the golden boy gets everything. How stupid of me."

"Stop it. You're just mad you were wrong."

"I wasn't wrong."

"You said adults never care. But they do."

"Fine. I guess adults just never care when it happens to me."

Leo rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Not everything is about you, Raf! You should be happy for Mikey."

But Raf wasn't happy for Mike. Even though Mike was the one he was least angry at, he wasn't anything like happy.

In fact, he was more furious than ever for weeks after Leo told him the news.


	4. Chapter 4

Mike wasn't stupid. Okay, he was a kid and he didn't do too good in school sometimes, but he still wasn't stupid.

He knew what Yoshi wanted him to talk about. Yoshi said the same kind of stuff the doctors had said, and the cops. Nothing was his fault, he was great, he was perfect, and if someone else had hurt him they deserved to be put away.

Which, fine. Okay. He got it. Something happened to him that everyone in the world knew about. Something that probably had something to do with the nightmares he got sometimes, and the fact that he couldn't go to sleep unless he was curled up real tight with his back to the wall.

Mike didn't want to _talk_ about it. He didn't want to think about it. He hated it when he got upset, and how could talking about things like that help him be less upset?

He hated it when adults came to him with that big sad-eyed look on their face, and talked all quiet and serious about how other adults did bad bad things.

He liked Yoshi because he got away from all that stuff. Because he got to hang out with Leo and Donnie and Rafael, and he could play around with the punching bags and the weapons (though Yoshi would take them away from him if he ever said 'playing around' out loud).

Then suddenly every session Yoshi was coming at him with the same sad words about how awful adults could be and how none of it was ever Mikey's fault.

He still liked Yoshi, of course - he liked having a 'sensei', even after he found out sensei was just another word for a teacher. He liked the learning, the quiet sitting and clearing his mind, and meeting the kids there.

But he hated those sessions when Yoshi closed the door and asked him if he wanted to talk about anything.

He just acted like he didn't know what Yoshi was talking about.

* * *

Leo flipped the light on and grinned. "This is my room. Our room, I mean."

Mike grinned back and rolled his eyes. "I've been here before, Leo."

"Well, yeah, but just to visit. Not to live."

Mike went to the cot they had set up beside the wall. He sat, bounced up and down experimentally. He looked at the door.

Leo came over and sprawled on his bed. "Father says we might move soon. He says an apartment is too small for three of us, and he's got money saved and everything."

"Nice. I've lived in houses a few times. They're better than apartments." He tried to keep grinning, but his eyes flitted from Leo back to the door. Finally he just took a breath and asked. "Does your dad come in here at night? Ever?"

Leo sat up and blinked. His dark hair fell over his eyes, and he shoved it back with his hand. "At night? Like to tuck me in?"

Mike shrugged, awkward.

"Nah, not really. He used to. But he said…" Leo studied Mike, looking at him like he was a Rubik's cube he was trying to put together or something. "Dad said you might ask about nighttime. There's a lock on the door, and dad said we can lock it whenever we want so no one can come in."

"Really?" A lock on the door.

Wow.

Leo kept studying him. All serious, like he was a lot. "Why did he think you'd ask about--"

"Hey, how come there's no TVs in this place? We gotta go tell your dad to get a TV." Mike stood up and moved to the door fast. "Come on! We got work to do to make this place perfect!"

* * *

Rafael wasn't Spanish, but most people thought he was. He sounded like he was, and he used Spanish words, and he had real dark hair and dark eyes. But he wasn't really. He was just raised up by a Spanish family and learned to talk from them.

Don found him fascinating. He was really rude and angry and he knew all kinds of things about things Don had never even heard about. He knew what all the bad words his parents wouldn't let Don say meant. He knew about adult things, like sex and smoking.

And he was teaching Don Spanish.

"_Por que es cansada_," Don said to himself absently as he lay on his stomach in bed, staring at his notebook.

No. Wasn't right. "_Por que somos cansada. Cansados._"

Maybe. Conjugating words and thinking of the right tense was kind of hard in Spanish.

Still, it was close enough. Porque somos cansados, Don. That's why I can't listen to you go on about Yoshi or talk about school or ask about TV and work and something you saw on the street.

That's why you have to go to bed right after dinner and lay there though you can't sleep.

Don sighed, rolling onto his back. If he thought about it too long he'd get angry, and they'd get mad again. But it was so boring he didn't know what to do. Sometimes he even cried, just because he was bored.

He'd never tell anyone that, of course.

Just…he couldn't live with it. Every minute of every day his mind was just full of things, questions and facts and puzzles he hadn't solved yet. Every day he learned something, and learning something - knowing something one minute that you didn't know the minute before - was just so amazing he wanted to let everyone else learn it too.

Just realizing that every word Raf taught him was a way to say something to thousands of people who wouldn't understand it in English, it was so cool. How could his parents not care what _porque somos cansados_ meant?

Oh, he knew he was lucky. He'd been with this mom and dad for almost two years, and he knew a lot of other kids weren't like that. He knew Raf and Mike didn't even have homes - though Master Yoshi was maybe adopting Mike for a while.

Leo was lucky with Master Yoshi. Don was lucky with his new parents.

Sometimes he didn't remember that, though. Sometimes, especially lately with his dad working a job at night and not even being there to listen to Don like he used to, it just felt like he wasn't lucky at all.

_Konichiwa_ meant hello in Japanese, Master Yoshi had told him.

_Hola_ meant hello in Spanish.

There were a ton more languages out there that Don didn't know, and sometimes it bugged him. What if he met some guy from Russia or something? How would he know how to say hi to him?

How could he go to bed right after dinner when there were languages he couldn't say hello in?

Master Yoshi asked him once what the worst emotion was to feel. Don had said sadness back then, but sensei told him that wasn't good enough, and that something deeper would come to him.

He wondered sometimes if 'bored' wasn't the right answer. It was the worst emotion he ever felt, anyway. When he couldn't ever make his mind shut up for ten seconds, but there was nothing to distract it with. When he was bored, that was when he got angry, and got into trouble.

That was why they sent him to Master Yoshi in the first place.

Maybe he'd tell sensei and see if it was the right answer.

* * *

Raf knew he was trouble.

They told him all the time. They said if he acted out and got demerits on his record it would follow him forever. They said how he acted would affect his whole life. If he was a bad kid, he'd be a bad adult.

He said fine. He didn't know any other kind of adult.

He hated adults. He hated them 'cause they had all the power and all the control and they were just as rotten as kids. Worse.

Raf had known a lot of good kids. He never knew one good adult.

Well.

Master Yoshi was alright. He was doing right by Mikey, anyway, which was something. Kind of surprising, really, but maybe not.

The first family he was sent to, when he was too young to remember much, had a son of their own named Oswaldo. Oswaldo was older than all the kids from the foster home, and he always went out with friends and made himself dinner and never got punished, and he hated all the other kids.

But Rafael remembered one day when Oswaldo sat with him and a couple of the girls who were kind of his sisters for a little while before the state took them all away from each other.

And Oswaldo said that the reason their parents never had food for them was because they were poor, and that poor people never got anything. He said they were Mexican and Mexican people could scrub toilets but couldn't get rich.

He said rich was for white people, and people who didn't speak with accents. He said if you saw a white person on the street they were probably rich. Especially if they were pretty.

Maybe that went for foster kids, too. Maybe Mike was pretty and white and people liked helping him. He was rich 'cause he had someone who would help him.

Oswaldo used to tell them, when he was tired of hearing them say they were hungry or cold or something, that he wouldn't help them. No one would ever help them.

"Because you're dirty and you're poor and you're even worse than my parents, because not even your own families want you."

Sometimes it made Raf happy to think that Oswaldo's parents were in jail and he was a foster kid himself now.

Sometimes the only thing that made Raf happy was seeing someone hurting worse than he was.

* * *

"I'm not using this."

Yoshi sighed and picked up the bo from the mat. "You're quite correct. If you insist on treating these weapons with disrespect you will use none of them."

Raf glared at him, his thin arms folded over his chest like a petulant adult. "The thing's bigger than I am. How'm I supposed to use it?"

The boy was arrogant, rude. Completely without discipline. As crass as the worst boys in the foster system.

But for some reason, even before Yoshi knew that Rafael was his own, he had a strange weakness for him.

Perhaps because he was so small.

"The weapon is designed to extend your reach. To allow you to grow, in a sense, when fighting an enemy."

"I don't need reach. I can take down anyone I want. I already got two good weapons." His small hands curled into fists.

It might have been amusing, but Yoshi knew those fists had hurt other children before.

Yoshi crouched, using the bo as staff to balance him. "Rafael, are these lessons designed to teach you to 'take down' anyone?"

Raf rolled his eyes. "No."

"What are they designed for?"

A deep sigh. "To teach skill and coordination and discipline."

"Very good." Yoshi straightened, satisfied. "Your friends are already several lessons along with their own weapons."

_"No me importa dos cajones."_

Yoshi raised an eyebrow. "What have I told you about using Spanish in my dojo?"

Raf glared at him.

Yoshi waited.

Raf growled. "That it's a sign of disrespect since I know you don't understand what I'm saying."

"Very good. Now, are you trying to be disrespectful?"

"Yeah."

Yoshi had to fight back a smile. The boy was honest, if nothing else. "Will you tell me why?"

"Why not?"

"That is evasion, not answer."

"Why'm I here anyway? Prentiss says if I keep getting into fights I'm going to jail. Why're you teaching me to fight? You want me to be in prison?"

"I don't think they send nine year olds to prison for fighting, Rafael."

"Detention center's as good as jail. My friend Hector said kids go right from one to the other anyway."

"You are neither place yet."

"I might as well be."

Yoshi hesitated then.

Perhaps Rafael's anger came from an absence of hope. It certainly seemed as if he had people on all sides making him think he would never be anything. That seemed to be the case with a good many of these children. There was no hope in them, because no one had any hope for them.

Nine years old was far too young to be without hope. Yoshi spoke accordingly. "Perhaps you might end up in a detention center, and perhaps prison might follow, if you keep on your course of violence. But Rafael." He reached out, put a hand on the slight boy's shoulder. "I think you can be more than that. I think you can prove everyone wrong."

Raf tensed and jerked away from his hand. "I won't do it by learning how to fight, will I? Are we done yet?"

Obviously if there were magic words to fix Rafael, Yoshi hadn't found them yet. He sighed. "We still have ten minutes remaining to--"

"I don't care how much time! I'm done! I'm not fighting with anyone or with any stupid stick you gave me 'cause you thought I want to be taller or something. I don't even know what I'm doing here!"

He stormed off without waiting to be dismissed. Red-faced, furious. Stomping his feet though the mats carried no sound either way.

Yoshi looked after him and frowned to himself, wondering why he didn't punish the boy the way he would any other student. Why he let him get away with such an attitude. Sometimes, he had to admit, he wondered why he bothered teaching Raf at all.

* * *

Then came times when he knew.

Mike had a particularly rough session one day. Since moving in with Yoshi and Leo his mood got better, and his lows were more rare. But when they hit, they still hit like a sonic wave, flattening everything Mike could get his hands on.

Yoshi, for all he was coming to know his sunny, cheerful Mike, didn't know how to get through to him when those moods hit.

But he watched this one day, shortly after Mike's tenth birthday, when Mike came out of a session with the punching bag and still had enough anger to throw open the dojo door and glower at anyone who might be outside.

He saw Rafael, waiting for his practice to start.

And he stood in the doorway as Rafael didn't hesitate. He just went up to Mike and took him by the shoulders and pushed him against the wall.

He spoke, low and accented but loud enough to reach Yoshi's ears.

"To hell with them, Mikey. They don't have to live with it. You do. You don't have to give them anything."

Mike glared at him, breathing hard, still red-faced and shining with sweat from his attack on the bag.

Raf grinned suddenly, sharp as his smiles always were. "You remember that _pinche ojete _David? Who cleaned the floors at night in the dorms?"

Mike focused on his face, but didn't respond in any way.

Raf bared his teeth. "I broke his fingers a few months ago. He couldn't tell anyone who did it, either, so he just said he fell and left and never came back."

Mike blinked.

"If anyone ever tries to hurt you, you tell me, and I'll break their fingers too. That's all you have to remember when these _cabron_ keep making you talk about the stuff they don't have any right to know."

Mike smiled.

Yoshi figured it out easily enough. Someone at the state home had hurt Mike in some way - this David person. And Raf had hurt him in revenge.

It went against more than a few of the principles Yoshi taught, yet that side of him that was so strangely fond of Raf felt pride in the little boy. And at that moment it was easy to remember why he tried so hard to reach Raf.

Of course it was also a good reminder that if he didn't find the right way to reach him soon, Rafael would very possibly fulfill the prophecies others had made for him, and be in detention and prison before he really had a chance at life.


	5. Chapter 5

_AN - Language notes at the end of the chapter. Sorry, didn't realise everyone would be so curious about the Spanish. :-) _

* * *

"Raf! Oh my God, get in here! We've been waiting for like hours for you!" 

"Fuck off, Mikey, I was busy."

Raf grew three inches between ages ten and eleven, but if Yoshi hoped growing might calm some of his anger, he was disappointed.

He was just as angry, just as quick to attack. Just as often in trouble, though Prentiss's theory that he would be in prison before he hit puberty was hopefully to be disproved.

"Come on, Raf! This is going to be awesome!"

Mike still liked him as much as ever, somehow. Even Yoshi's patience had been tested more than once., but Mike, it seemed, was a friend without fail.

Raf shrugged off his worn backpack and dropped it in the doorway, off the mat. He toed off his dirty sneakers. He looked at Yoshi, bowed in his perfunctory, just-enough-to-be-respectful way, and moved to where the other three were already kneeling.

Mike settled down when Raf knelt beside him. "This is so awesome."

"Jesus, Mike, calm down."

"Rafael." Yoshi looked down at Raf.

Raf bent his head, hiding a smirk. "Sorry, sensei."

Yoshi regarded him. "Very well. Now that we're all here, the lesson can begin."

"Wait 'til you see what he's going to teach us! It's so cool! Leo showed me already, and--"

"Michael."

Mike grinned up at Yoshi. Yoshi maintained a frown, though it was hard. He was really terribly fond of his second son. "Perhaps Leonardo would demonstrate again."

Leo lit up and jumped to his feet, moving up to join Yoshi in front of the other boys. He bowed to Yoshi deeply, grinning.

Yoshi returned the bow, if not the smile. It was good to see Leo's spirits as light as they had been. Having Mike there was good for him. Good for all of them.

Leo drew a deep breath and Yoshi watched the concentration screw his face up. He shifted his feet a few more inches apart, squared his shoulders. Shifted his spine. Yoshi waited, and a slight imperfection in Leo's centering corrected itself until he stood perfectly, the way he'd been taught.

Always a perfectionist, his Leonardo.

Yoshi turned his eyes to the other boys. "Any guess what he's doing? Michael, please don't answer."

Raf shrugged. "He's standing there."

"He's balancing weird," Don noticed.

Yoshi smiled. "Very good. Michael, stand."

Mike jumped to his feet, bouncing light on his toes.

Yoshi gestured to Leo. "Kindly knock him over."

"Yes!" Mike grinned at the two other boys and rubbed his hands together. "Ready, bro?"

Leo smiled through his focus. "Yeah."

Mike charged him.

Yoshi watched Don and Raf during the demonstration. When Mike came at Leo they both watched in surprise. When he slammed into him and bounced off, though Leo didn't move a muscle, their mouths dropped open.

Yoshi smiled to himself. "Michael?"

"I'm okay!" Mike jumped back to his feet. "Awesome, Leo."

Leo grinned and relaxed.

"I don't get it."

Yoshi turned to Raf. "Proper balance is of more than aesthetic importance."

"What's that mean?"

"It means it's more than just looking good," Leo explained as he and Mike took their spots kneeling in front of Yoshi again.

Yoshi nodded. "By centering yourself perfectly, rooting your balance into the very ground, you can become an entirely unmovable object. Like you just saw, any attacker attempting to knock you off balance would do just as well going against a brick wall."

"That's impossible." Don regarded Yoshi, wide-eyed with the nervousness he always got when he questioned Yoshi's teachings.

Yoshi smiled. "Leo? Perhaps Don would like to try."

Leo jumped to his feet again readily, beaming his pride in his accomplishment.

Don stood in front of him and tried pushing with his hands. After a few unsuccessful attempts he butted his shoulder carefully against Leo's chest. Then he stood back and regarded him.

Raf jumped to his feet. "Let someone do it who's not scared to make him fall on his ass."

"Rafael."

"Butt. I said butt."

Yoshi gave him a stern look, but nodded his permission.

Raf ran at Leo and tackled him like a football player trying to down another.

A few moments later Raf was picking himself up off the ground, gaping at Leo.

Leo was practically glowing.

Yoshi set about instructing them, teaching how to position their feet, how to figure out the right center for them. Of course no lesson like that was learned in a day, and by the end of the two hours there were three frustrated boys still knocking each other down easily.

Yoshi dismissed them with a smile. "Remember, any lesson that can be taught in a single class is hardly worth knowing at all. We will continue this Wednesday."

The four of them bowed - with varying degrees of respect - and Mike turned to Leo. "My brother rules!"

Leo grinned, pleased. "I've just been working on it for a while."

"Shut up, you're the best."

"Rafael. Don. Please remain for a few moments."

They waited while Yoshi's two children left the dojo to pound up the stairs and no doubt raid what little food remained in the fridge.

Yoshi regarded his two other children, the ones he had no claim to beyond a few days in a sewer years ago. "The two of you have been doing poorly in your private lessons. Working with weapons is a dangerous thing that shouldn't be rushed, of course, but your progress is too slow. I believe I have a solution to this problem, though."

Raf and Don exchanged glances.

_"Tenemos un problema?"_

_"No se."_

"Boys."

"Sorry, sensei. No disrespect." Raf grinned, quickfire.

Yoshi nodded. "Very well. Don, I'd like you to tell me why you think you're having such problems working with the katana."

Don shrugged. His eyes dropped, meaning he knew the answer but didn't want to say it. Perhaps because Raf was there.

But Yoshi had been trying for months to get the boys all entirely comfortable with each other. Don was still too shy at times, and Leonardo was still hesitant around Raf, but for the most part the improvements were vast.

"Don, please."

Don cleared his throat. "I just…the sword always seems so…" He shifted on his feet, glancing at Raf. "So sharp."

Raf smirked.

Yoshi ignored him. "You don't like the idea of cutting into an enemy, do you?"

"No." Don answered that with less hesitation, even in the face of Raf's smirk. "I don't."

"Good, then I believe I have a proper solution." He turned and went to the wall, and pulled from over the katana on their holders the bo that Rafael had been struggling so hard with.

"Hey! That's mine!" Typically, Raf protested instantly.

"No, Rafael. A good warrior earns his weapons. A warrior knows and respects his weapons. You have not yet earned this. Therefore, Don will attempt it."

Don took the bo when Yoshi held it out, looking at it dubiously. "It's a stick."

Yoshi smiled. "Tomorrow we will begin lessons. I think you will come to see quickly how much more than a stick the bo can be."

Don shrugged, shifting his hands on the bo, swinging it a bit experimentally, hefting its weight.

"This is bullshit!"

"Rafael!"

Raf's cheeks were already red with anger. "You never said you were gonna take it away from me! Just because I can't learn as fast as perfect Leonardo--"

"Stop."

Raf glowered at Don and the bo. "Forget it. He can have it. He can have everything of mine if he wants it. I don't care."

Yoshi sighed. "Don, perhaps you'd like to join my sons upstairs."

Don handed the bo back, always respectful of the equipment. "Yes, sensei." He shot Raf a look, apologetic. _"Lo siento--"_

_"Callate, cabron!"_ Raf's hands were fists.

"Raf--"

"Don. You're dismissed."

Don grabbed his shoes and left the dojo.

"Rafael. This sort of outburst has no place in my lessons."

"What lessons? You took away my weapon!"

Yoshi sighed, small and contained. "You don't like the bo. You've made that abundantly clear. The bo, I think, shares that dislike."

"Great, even the stick doesn't like me."

Yoshi bit back a smile. "But I believe we can find an alternative."

Raf opened his mouth to retort, but hesitated.

Yoshi gestured at the walls. "I've explained almost all of these weapons to you, their uses, their advantages and disadvantages. Are there any that call to you more than the bo? Any you think you would be happier using?"

"I don't know." Raf glanced at the wall, but his glower stayed firmly in place. "The chuks are Mike's. Leo and Don use the swords, and hell if I wanna compete with Mr. Perfect."

"Rafael."

Raf looked away from the wall. "I don't care. It's all stupid anyway."

Yoshi regarded him. "Do you mean that?"

Raf frowned.

Yoshi was hesitant, unsure where the limits of Rafael's bluffs fell. "Because if you mean it, there would be no point in your continuing to come for lessons."

Raf blinked and looked away. "You don't want me here."

"That isn't true, and I think you know that."

"Course it's true. Nobody wants me. I don't want them to. I don't care if I don't come back. I don't care."

Yoshi turned to put the bo back on the wall, and his eyes caught on a pair of weapons he hadn't put up yet. A new addition to his dojo. Weapons he was not fully trained on himself.

He hesitated, regarding them. He moved to the table they lay on and lifted them, hefting the heavy iron. He would have to order a practice pair, but… "Have you heard of the sai?"

"The sigh?" Raf snorted.

Yoshi turned, the jagged three-pronged daggers in his hands. "The sai," he repeated.

Raf's eyes went to him, and down to the weapons. His eyebrows lifted.

Yoshi moved to him slowly, regarding the daggers. "Sai are a tricky weapon. As you see, they are shaped different than anything else I've got. They are small. Sharp. They cut in more than one way."

Raf's eyes - unusually bright, Yoshi saw as he moved closer - were caught on the weapons. "They look kinda wicked."

"Yes. They are rather wicked. They're deceptive, Rafael. They look as if they might be used to stab out, to strike at attackers. They are called daggers. But the sai's appearance is deceptive." He held one out.

Raf hesitated, looking unsure, but took it. It dropped a few inches, as if the weight surprised him.

"The sharpness of it is deceptive," Yoshi continued. "You see these?" He reached out and tapped his finger on the two short, blunt prongs at the ends. "They are called tsuba. They look dangerous, but they are entirely defensive."

"Defensive?" Raf looked at Yoshi, anger forgotten. "You mean you're not supposed to stab people with them?"

Yoshi smiled. "You could if you had to. But that's not their function." He turned and went back to get the bo Rafael had failed with. He set the other sai down and turned back to Raf. "I am an enemy. I am a great deal larger than you, and with this weapon, as you have pointed out many a time, I am even larger and have greater reach."

Raf studied him, his focus sharp.

Yoshi had to fight a premature feeling of triumph. "I know you, Rafael. You have fought larger opponents before. Often you come out the victor. Why?"

Raf hesitated. "'Cause I know how to kick--"

"Rafael."

He stopped, sighed. "I don't know. Because…I'm not scared of them."

"Even though they're larger?"

"Bigger they are, harder they fall, right?"

Yoshi smiled. "Exactly. Size can be a great disadvantage. You can use an opponents size against them. Especially with weapons like these." Yoshi held the bo in both hands and slowly extended it at Raph. "In order to strike you, I must extend. I must come in to your space. Why is that a disadvantage?"

Raf blinked a few times, rapid-fire. A habit of his when he was searching for an answer he knew he remembered. "It's like you said in the lesson today. Balance is important, and when you have to reach so far it's harder to balance."

Victory nearly made Yoshi grin. He contained it, clearing his throat. "Exactly. Now. Consider the weapon in your hand."

Raf did, looking down at the heavy sai. He looked up at the bo's end, coming inch by inch into his space.

He lofted the sai, touching the end of the dull tsuba with his finger.

Yoshi kept coming, slow-motion as his initial attacks in new lessons always were. He studied Raf's face, hoping. Weapons were such an instinctive thing, and Raf's personality was so mercurial that the fit would have to be right or no weapon would be more successful than the bo.

Raf shifted, his feet apart, watching the bo. He held the sai in front of his face, brow furrowed.

Suddenly his eyes widened and he grinned. His eyes were locked on the end of the bo, waiting, watching.

And when the bo was close enough, in his own space, he lifted the sai so that the end of the bo fell between a tsuba and the pronged middle dagger. His wrist twisted, slow as Yoshi was moving, experimental.

The bo was caught.

Raf pushed his arm, and the bo moved with the sai, trapped.

Yoshi straightened, smiling.

"Oh…" Raf shifted his wrist to free the bo. He regarded the sai, and then looked at Yoshi. A question in his eyes.

Yoshi nodded. "Very good."

"Oh!" Raf clutched the sai. A smile spread over his face, sudden and bright and sincere where his grins usually had an edge. The smile of a child. Of a young boy who had done well and knew it. Who found something that fit him, and knew it.

It was the first real smile Yoshi had ever seen on his face.

And when he spoke, his voice was young. No longer sharp, no longer defensive. "Can _these_ be mine?" He cradled the single sai to his chest, possessive.

Respectful.

Yoshi had to clear his throat before he could answer. "They do seem to like you."

* * *

"It doesn't mean anything, really. I mean…no one even knows what day I was born." 

"Shut up, Don. It means a lot! No one knows when the rest of us were born either. They gave us days, and now they're our days." Mike crossed his arms over his chest, stubborn. "Now, are you gonna come in and enjoy your party or do we have to get the weapons out?"

Don dropped his eyes, shy but beaming all the same. "Okay."

Mike tugged him in instantly. "It's just us, anyway. You don't have to be all nervous or whatever. Hey dad, he's coming!"

Don jumped when Mike shouted, but his heart felt lighter the higher up the stairs they moved.

His parents gave him a party. They invited friends from school and Mike and Leo, and Raf but he couldn't come because he was in the state home and it wasn't easy to get him out. It had been big and fun and his parents had both been there the whole time, which was almost amazing.

But Don liked this more. Just the four of them and Master Yoshi. He knew them all well, not like the kids at school he hardly even talked to. He liked them and they liked him. It was more honest.

He pushed open the door and Mike pushed him through and he grinned, red-cheeked.

Leo and Raf stood on either side of a small, lopsided cake. Yoshi stood back, hands behind his back, that small smile on his face.

"We made it!" Leo said in a rush, before he even said hello. "We made the cake and dad only watched and didn't help. And Raf decorated it when he got here!"

_Felis cupleanos_, the cake read in messy icing.

Don grinned and almost said something about how the words were misspelled. But he didn't, because maybe it wasn't a funny thing that he could spell Spanish words better than Raf.

He didn't have time to think about it before Mike started pushing him closer.

"Come on! Everybody sing! We're gonna do this right!"

Mike didn't give them time before he began his own loud, cheery version of 'happy birthday'. Leo and Raf joined in, and even Yoshi sang softly from where he stood watching.

Don was grinning so big it made his eyes squint, but he could see well enough to lean in and blow out the crooked candles when they were done.

Mike cheered and Raf and Leo clapped, and Yoshi went back to get plates and silverware.

"You got a present," Raf said with a grin.

"I already got presents," Don said in protest, though of course he was more than happy to hear he had more stuff coming.

"This is _our_ present, though." Leo grabbed a bright wrapped box from the table beside the cake. "Here!"

It was heavy. Don grinned. "What is it?"

"You're supposed to open it, idiot."

"Rafael." Yoshi moved back in, knife in his hand.

Raf held up his hands. "Sorry. You're supposed to open it, _cabron_."

"Enough," Yoshi said quickly, but though he sighed he was smiling as he started cutting Don's second birthday cake.

Don tore the paper off the box and blinked at the picture and the words describing what was inside. For a moment he thought it was wrong - sometimes his parents wrapped up gifts in old boxes that still had pictures of other things on them. Don got a big stuffed bear once in a box that had a TV on it.

But when he peeled off the tape and opened the box…

"Wow."

"We know how you like electronic things," Leo said fast, excited, his weight shifting back and forth from one leg to the other. "And you said you like to watch shows about everything, so…" He grinned. "Now you can make your own shows."

Don pulled the styrofoam blocks out of the box, and carefully lifted the video camera out. "Wow!"

"We have tapes for you too, but dad didn't bother wrapping those." Mike grinned and nodded towards a neat stack of VHS tapes.

Don beamed, lifting the camera to his eye. "Wow." He dug into the box and pulled out the manual, and seeing the pages and pages of instruction and detail was almost better than seeing the actual camera.

"Guess you like it, then." Raf smirked.

"Shut up." Don grinned, aiming the camera at him. "Or I won't make you a star."

Raf made a face, looking at the lens.

Don giggled and set the camera carefully down, flipping through the instructions. "Thanks, guys! Thanks, Master Yoshi. This is awesome."

"Well, the card says it's from all of us," Raf said suddenly. "But I don't have any money and it was Leo's idea and I really didn't have anything to do with it."

"Rafael, we told you--"

"I know." Raf grinned. "I'm just saying. That's why I brought him a present just from me."

Don beamed. "Another one?"

Raf shrugged. He dug in his pocket. "Like I said, I don't have any money. It's nothing cool like a video camera."

Don looked at the camera longingly.

"But!" Raf pulled his hand out of his pocket, holding a piece of paper up in victory. "Here."

Don blinked at it. "What is it?"

"Just look at it, dork."

He took the paper. A little square of cardboard. It had his name on it - Donald Tell, and his parents' address. And words at the top.

New York Public Library

He blinked. "A library card?"

Raf shrugged. Now that the gift was given he looked suddenly sheepish. "Uh. You know, 'cause you keep saying how boring it is at home. And that's good for a lot of libraries around the city, and there's one a few stops down from here, and I thought maybe sometimes you could go there instead of waiting for hours here for your folks. And you could take books home and it would be less boring? Jesus, Don, I don't know! Stop staring at me."

Don realized he really was staring. He dropped his eyes back to the card. "How'd you get it?"

Raf was getting red-faced. Everyone's eyes were on him, even Yoshi. "Uh. I snuck out of the home."

"Rafael." Yoshi's voice was stern.

"What? I do it a lot. There's all kinds of ways in and out of that place." He grinned, cocky for a moment. "Um. And yeah. I just went in and lied to 'em, said my name was your name and my parents worked at night and couldn't come get the card with me, and I faked like I was gonna cry or something, and bam. They gave it to me."

Don smiled. "Thanks."

Raf shrugged. "It's nothing, anyway."

"It is something." Yoshi held out a plate of messy birthday cake to Don, and his hand rested on Raf's shoulder for a moment. "It's a thoughtful, considerate gift."

"That mean I'm not in trouble for sneaking around and lying and stuff?"

Yoshi smiled kindly. "No."

Raf sighed. "Thought not."

* * *

Sometimes things went so well it was easy for Yoshi to forget that two of his children weren't his. 

Don came so often, nearly every day after school to play with Mike and Leo if not to study with Yoshi himself, that he felt like a third son.

Was a third son, as Rafael was fourth. Just…not officially.

Still, it was easy to think of Don as his own, and hard when something came along to remind him that the boy's fate wasn't in Yoshi's hands.

"I don't know, Yoshi." Miss Prentiss sighed through the phone. "I can't get over just being disgusted by the whole thing."

Yoshi could hear the sounds of his own two sons playing together in the next room. "I don't understand why they can't…"

"To talk to the wife, it's because she's got to move back to Arkansas or somewhere unholy like that, and doesn't know if she'll be able to raise a child when she gets there. The father? Well, the father's a selfish ass."

She sighed again, worn down and bitter like every time she talked to him lately. "They never should have adopted in the first place, but I didn't care because they didn't hurt him. Even if they were remote they were parents, and it was nice not to have to worry about Don."

"Does he know yet?"

"I think so. The parents decided on the divorce shortly after his birthday."

Yoshi shut his eyes, anger making his fist wrap around the phone cord. "They would simply give him back. After years raising that sweet boy, they would…"

"I know, Yoshi. Believe me, you'd be preaching to the choir. I tried to talk them out of it. But there comes a point when it would be cruel to leave Don with someone who had to be convinced to hold on to him."

"Damn it."

"Pretty much, yeah."

Don would be crushed. He would be sent back to that home, the same one Raf hated so much.

Perhaps that would be something. Perhaps they would be happier together.

He couldn't fool himself with that thought, though. Rafael despised the home and the staff and everything about the place. Yoshi could just imagine Raf's rage realizing his friend was going to be sent back.

He remembered long ago, when Raf told Mike he had hurt some staff member who hurt Mike.

He had a very bad feeling that the peace of the last few months was about to get disturbed, and heavily.

* * *

_Note about the language:_

_For the most part it's safe to assume that anything out of Raf's mouth in Spanish is a profanity. He likes the naughty words, si?  
_

_From the last chapter, the phrase Don was working on in his mind, porque somos cansados, just means 'because we're too tired'. Raf's retort to Yoshi, no me importa dos cajones, means essentially 'I don't give a crap'. Cabron, Raf's favorite word, means bastard, jerk, like that. _

_From this chapter:_

_Tenemos un problema: We have a problem?_

_No se. : I don't know._

_Lo sieto- : I'm sorry-_

_Callate : Shut up_

_Feliz cumpleanos, which Raf misspelled on Don's cake, obviously means 'happy birthday'.  
_


	6. Chapter 6

Don moved into the small lunchroom and looked around.

He had been adopted by his parents...by Jim and Julie, anyway…when he was pretty young. He didn't remember much about the orphanage, but he wasn't expecting what he came back to.

It was like high school, but there was nowhere to go when class was done. There were kids of all ages and most of them were quiet and nervous and angry. And they knew each other.

He was a stranger.

He could feel eyes on him all day, as he went to find a bed in the long, single room all the boys slept in, and as he was taken around by Prentiss and shown where everything was.

He felt them then, in the lunchroom. Like being the new kid in school or something.

Angry eyes. Scared. Hostile. He was a new element in the lives of a bunch of kids who were already floating so uncertainly. He knew that. But he didn't like it, even if he understood it. It was a matter of time before the angrier of the kids sought him out, pushed him around. Made sure he knew his place.

He went through the line to get his food and stood for a moment, uncertain, eying the strange kids already sitting.

As he stood there a tray slammed into his back, and a curse rang out behind him.

He jumped and wheeled around, and surprise made him instantly warm and happy.

Raf stood there, small and wiry and looking ready to curse up a storm.

Don grinned, unable to help it. Raf. A friend, in that miserable place. A good friend, who knew him and got him a birthday present and sparred with him. Before he could say anything, though, his eyes caught on Raf's face.

On the huge circle of black, bruised skin around his eye.

His grin faded and he opened his mouth to ask.

Raf backed up, his anger draining away. He raised his hands, not even bothering to pick up the tray and the food he'd dropped. "Shit. Sorry. Didn't see you."

Don blinked. "What?"

Raf looked around. His eyes were wide, his movements uneven. If Don didn't know him better, he'd think Raf was scared.

"Look, it was an accident. Just leave it, okay? Please?"

"Leave what?" Don moved towards him.

Raf's arms shot up, hands in front of his face. "Hey! I said I was sorry. Don't hit me again!"

"Again?" Don stared at him.

Raf cursed, turning on his heel and flying out the door of the lunchroom, past a protesting caretaker who started after him.

Don stood there, baffled.

A hand touched his arm, and he jumped again. He turned.

Some strange kid, tall and red-haired. "Dude. You really socked Psycho Boy in the eye?"

Don blinked. "Uh."

The kid grinned. "Don't worry, I won't get you into trouble. Come on, you gotta tell us how it happened. Nobody messes with Rafael. I never seen him back up to anyone before."

Don went when the kid led him, glancing back towards the door Raf had flown from.

"You must be a badass, man. Nobody gonna mess with you if you took Raf out."

Don blinked, looked around the lunchroom again. Eyes were still on him, but the looks were different. Whispers went up as he passed.

Redhead led him to a table crammed with older boys. "Hey, guys, this is…uh…"

Don turned back to the redhead. "Don."

"Yeah. Don. Psycho-killer."

"Man, you gave Psycho that shiner? You must have balls the size of subway cars."

Don laughed, a jolt of surprise at the grins that greeted him - and the rather distracting mental image he conjured up.

He sat down.

* * *

When Raf found him, later that night after curfew, he was in bed, wide away, looking up at the ceiling and thinking how it hadn't been a rotten first day entirely. 

And Raf appeared out of the darkness, bright eyes and grinning teeth. "Yo, Psycho-Killer."

Don grinned and rolled over. "Hey! I thought you were nuts earlier!"

Raf chucked him on the arm. "Nope. Just smoothing your way a little."

Don squinted through the darkness. Raf's face was mostly shadow but Don could see the darkness around his eye. "That's real?"

Raf blinked, but shrugged. "Yeah."

"You didn't…?"

"I didn't get myself socked in the face just for your geeky ass, no."

"Then how--"

"Don't question it. Just be glad it ain't gonna happen to you now."

Don frowned. "Raf. If someone hit you--"

"_Basta, amigo_." Raf smirked. "None of these dainty little _chicas_ would even try it. Now get to sleep. And keep your mouth shut to Yoshi about it, okay?"

Don frowned.

"Donnie."

"Okay, okay. I promise."

Raf slipped away.

"_Gracias_, Raf," Don said into the dark.

"_De nada, mi hermano_," came the quiet answer from out of his sight.

Don smiled as he lay back.

He felt at loose ends. His family as he knew it was gone. Most of his stuff was at Leo and Mike's place to keep it safe. He was in a strange dorm with strange kids. He was already being called Psycho-killer, and as a nickname for Don it was probably the least fitting one ever.

But he fell asleep easily, with Raf's voice in his head. _Hermano._ It was one of his favorite words in Spanish.

Brother.

* * *

"Miss Prentiss. You're not giving me an answer." 

She was quiet, even after he broke the already long silence. Finally she sighed. "Yoshi, you'd be making me the happiest person in the world right now, only…I don't think I could allow it."

Yoshi regarded her over the booth and their barely touched meals. Files lay around the table, notes Yoshi was giving for others of her boys that he worked with. Files she had on boys who could use his lessons.

Yoshi didn't want to think about new students. He was, and he admitted it to himself fully, entirely biased at the moment towards two children whose futures were still uncertain.

She frowned, taking up her coffee mug. "Listen. I don't think Don will be any problem. I know he enjoys your lessons, and I think he would be glad to join you and your boys." She smiled faintly. "He's really a good kid. He would probably have already found another home by now if most couples weren't looking for someone younger. I'll start the paperwork on him, and hopefully we can make that happen."

He picked up instantly on her hesitation. "Which leaves Rafael."

She nodded. "Rafael. It's nothing to do with you, Yoshi. Much as I hate to admit it, I would hesitate to recommend him for anyone's home. The boy is just…he's dangerous. You should know that more than anyone."

Yoshi frowned. "Has he not behaved better these last few months?"

"Better? Maybe. But better still puts him in the top five for badly behaved kids." She frowned. Her mouth opened, then shut. She looked at her coffee.

"What is it you're struggling to keep from me?"

She shot him a wry smile. "You see too much, Yoshi. Listen…Rafael…he has the potential to ruin what you're doing for these kids, and I really don't want to see that happen. As much as I'd like to see a troubled kid find a caring home, you do too much good for too many other kids."

"Why do you suppose Rafael would be a danger to me? I've worked with him for almost two years now."

"And I'm amazed you've lasted this long." She set her cup down, steeling herself. "Alright, I'll put it to you this way - Rafael has lived with four different families since he was five. He has worked with two different doctors. He has been trusted to the care of all these different, respected people and he hasn't failed once to rebel and run away, and try to do damage as he went."

"Damage."

"Mostly in the form of accusations. You name it, Raf claims it's been done to him. Abuse, molestation, starvation, intimidation. He's tried more than once to kick dirt on a counselor at the orphanage, a man I've known for many years and who has never hurt a child in his life."

Yoshi regarded her, tossing this new information around in his mind.

She smiled sheepishly. "I should have told you. I would have, if he'd started on you. But he hasn't. And, I have to say, you're the first authority figure he hasn't turned on. Of course none of the accusations had the slightest hint of evidence to support them, but these days even a hint of something like that would be enough to ruin you, Yoshi."

"You believe Rafael is a liar."

She blinked. "Are you listening to me here? The boy's _pathological_. He can't walk away from someone without inventing a persecution fantasy against them."

Yoshi's lips pressed together in a tight line. He breathed in, out, steady and even. "My request stands. I would like custody of Rafael as well as Don."

She sighed, shaking her head as she gathered up her share of the files. "Yoshi, you have all kinds of respect from me, but you're wrong about this kid. I'll start the papers going on Don, and…hell. I'll look into Raf. He has some disciplinary charges to see through, as always, but in a few weeks I'll see what I can get going."

"Thank you, Miss Prentiss." Yoshi bowed his head, polite as ever, ignoring the sheer stressed white of his knuckles around his teacup. "I appreciate your help."

"Just remember, I warned you."

"And you need not do it again." His smile cooled on his face. "I know my boys."

* * *

Leo glanced to the side, barely blinking his eyelids open wide enough to squint. "You in position?" 

Mike sounded exasperated. "Yeah, Leo. Geez. I know you're perfect and all, but some of us don't have to make 'sitting here' an exact science."

Leo grinned. "You should be focusing. Clearing your mind."

"My mind's always clear. A helium balloon, isn't that what Donnie said the other day?"

"Mikey."

Mike giggled, but stopped it quickly. After a few moments his breathing was even, steady.

Leo shut his eyes. "Concentrate," he murmured, adopting almost instinctively the low, lilting voice his father had always used when the training involved meditation and focus. "Breathe."

Mike obeyed.

Leo's eyes opened. He watched his brother, sitting on the opposite bed, and let his frown reveal itself finally. He kept talking, slow and soothing. "Focus on the air you breathe in and out. Focus on the bed beneath you and the clothes you're wearing."

Mike's face stayed blank, his breathing even. With his eyes shut, focusing, he seemed very different than Mike any other time. Someone so hyper and full of life shouldn't respond so well to meditation, but Mike did. And Leo was glad.

"Focus on the present. This room, the shape of the space. Focus on my voice." He watched his brother, trying to keep his voice blank.

He didn't want to feel bad when he looked at Mike. He tried not to.

But he was older now, and he understood things more than he used to. He understood that when Mike got mad it had a reason, and when he slept so badly it was because someone did bad things to him.

He even understood what Raf meant when he told him once that Mike was getting fucked. Though he didn't talk to Mike about it, or to his dad. He understood that fucked meant something really, really bad when it was said about a kid like Mike.

He understood more than he wanted to.

But he was a brother now, and he loved Mike a lot, and since he was there with him and he could help, he did.

Mike's face was clear, his breathing deep.

Leo's frown relaxed. The meditation usually helped. Making Mike focus on the here and now made it harder for the past to invade his dreams.

A noise caught his ear in the silence of the room, and he turned his head towards the door.

His father stood, peering in, probably wondering why so close to bedtime they were being so quiet.

Leo held a finger to his mouth.

But his father wouldn't have said anything either way, probably. He saw them both sitting in their meditation poses, and a thoughtful surprise kept him quiet.

He returned Leonardo's gaze, and somehow Leo knew he saw everything. He always did. He knew about Mike's bad dreams and he knew about whatever had hurt him in the past.

His father smiled, and though the expression was just a slight tilt of his mouth, Leo saw past it to the pride burning in his father's eyes.

Pride for his children. For Leo, helping his brother, and for Mike, making the right choices to rid himself of his demons.

Leo warmed to see it.

He'd never had a bad life, really. His dad felt guilty sometimes because Leo didn't go to a normal school like other kids, or have a lot of friends when he was younger. But Leo knew it was a better life than most other kids had.

Still, though he never went a day without knowing how much his father loved him, seeing how proud his father was still made him grin and his eyes burn.

Yoshi shut the door after a moment, silent the whole time.

Leo turned back to Mike, who hadn't lost his focus for a second. "Better?"

Mike's eyes opened after a few more seconds, eyelids lifting slow and heavy. He smiled, and it was more peaceful than his usual cheery grins. "Yeah."

"No nightmares, okay?"

"Okay." Mike met his eyes and bit his lip and crawled under the covers into bed.

Leo waited, keeping his pose, until Mike's breathing was deep in sleep. He stood and went to his brother and saw the small smile still on his face, and he knew.

No nightmares.

He shut the light off and got into bed.

* * *

"Raf!" 

He looked up, surprised but more than happy to snatch whatever it was interrupting his bored contemplation of the stupid homework he was being punished for not doing. "Donnie? Jesus, relax."

Don stood in the doorway to the classroom, beaming. He looked back down the hall either way before he came in, shutting the door behind him. "I had to tell you! Miss Prentiss says I'm going to a home!"

"Already? Holy shit." Raf pushed his assignment back, grinning crooked and tight. "Must be those big pretty eyes of yours. Got all the _gueros_ going nuts."

Don laughed. "But it's not some _guero_, it's Master Yoshi!"

Raf blinked. "Yoshi?"

"She says he wants me, and it's been approved already and as soon as Yoshi moves them into some house he just bought that has a whole room just for me, she says I can go!"

Raf looked at him.

Don peeked behind him. "Damn, someone's coming. I'll see you on the way to lessons, okay? I can tell you everything!"

Luckily Raf didn't have to reply. Don was gone too fast for it to matter.

When he looked back down at his work he saw the pencil had somehow split in two in his hand.


	7. Chapter 7

"No! I'm done, this is bullshit!"

"Rafael, lower your voice." Yoshi strode across the mat the moment the shouts began.

Leo was already fisting his hands, though, ready to make things worse. "Stop being such a baby. Father already told you--"

"Eat shit, _pendejo_." Raf lunged forward, shoving Leo back onto the mat.

"Rafael!" Yoshi grabbed him even as he made to jump on the fallen boy. "What is the matter with you? You know that sort of conduct isn't allowed in my--"

"Why should I care what's allowed?" Raf jumped away from him, wrenching his arm free from Yoshi's grasp. His glare stayed on Leonardo. "I'm not gonna turn into some fucking _maricon_ like him."

Yoshi pointed at the door. "Leave. Now. You know where to go."

Raf finally turned his glare onto Yoshi. "Screw you."

Yoshi's eyebrows rose. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, _cabron. Sacate a la chingada--_"

"Raf, come on." Don crossed the mat fast, wide eyes on Yoshi's darkening face. "Come on!" He grabbed Raf's arm.

Raf turned on his heel and stormed off, Don pushing him the whole way.

There was an unused supply closet near the front doors. It was a horrible place to shut a boy inside of, small and dark and bare. But Yoshi was out of options. He had three other boys to think of. He had tried every disciplinary measure he could think of, but Raf…

Raf had been a complete horror the last few days. Worse than when he first started coming in for lessons so long ago. Suddenly he wasn't listening to a word Yoshi said, he was picking fights with the boys he'd become friends with. He had become the boy Prentiss described when she spoke of Rafael.

And Yoshi was getting worried very fast. If it kept up, there was no way Rafael would stay out of trouble until Yoshi could sign papers to get custody. Honestly, Yoshi was finding him a chore.

He sighed and looked over when Don came back in.

Don was frowning, worried. "He's in the closet."

It hurt him to hear that, to resort to that kind of punishment. Yoshi moved off the mat and sat, heavy. "Leonardo, are you alright?"

"Yeah." Leo had picked himself up. His mouth was a pucker, glowering after Raf. "I don't…"

"Finish your thought, Leonardo."

"I don't understand why he's still here!" Leo turned to Yoshi. "Why do you let him get away with that? You wouldn't ever let me call anyone a cabr…whatever."

Yoshi regarded his son. "No. I wouldn't. For you such behavior would be worse than your nature. Rafael is attempting to become better than he has been."

"You could have fooled me." Leo frowned, marching to the side of the mat to pick up a practice pad Raf had thrown.

Yoshi watched him for a moment, thoughtful. For Leonardo to speak against Rafael, he must have been brooding on the other boy for a while. Leonardo was a wise child.

Was Rafael disruptive? Too disruptive to his family to be brought in?

No. He couldn't even consider that thought. Rafael, whatever he was, was one of Yoshi's.

"Sensei?" Don spoke hesitantly.

He looked up, found the three boys there, wide-eyed, waiting.

He stood. "What is it, Don?"

"Raf can come back, can't he?"

"Of course he can."

Leo frowned.

"Of course," Yoshi said again. "I will not give up on a single child, particularly not…" One of his four, but he didn't give that thought voice.

"Maybe he shouldn't," Mike said suddenly.

All eyes turned to him.

Mike, thoughtful, was regarding the door with those wide, clear blue eyes. "Maybe it's mean. For him to come with the rest of us."

"Why mean, Michael?"

Mike hesitated. "Well. We're all family now. Donnie too, even if he hasn't come to live with us yet. But Raf's not. It's mean. When I lived at the home I wouldn't've wanted to spend all my time with a family that didn't want me."

Children, Yoshi said to himself with a sudden ease of worry. Children sometimes saw so much more clearly than adults.

Those simple words explained everything. The timing was right, the anger.

He hadn't mentioned wanting to adopt Rafael because it seemed cruel to dangle such an idea when he wasn't entirely sure he could. But if Rafael were suffering because of the belief that he wasn't wanted, that was even more cruel.

"Boys, please wait for me. Leonardo, could you lead them in the kata you learned last week?"

"Yes, father," came the quiet answer.

Yoshi left the dojo. He moved to the closet and opened the door. "Rafael."

The boy was standing there, breathing hard, his hands fists. The white plaster behind him was cracked in a small circle dotted with red.

Yoshi frowned. "Show me your hand."

Raf's face was hard. He held out a fist, scratched and bleeding.

Yoshi sighed. "Come with me."

Raf followed him up the stairs in sullen silence. Yoshi led him to the couch in the front room and had him sit. He went to the bathroom to find antiseptic and bandages.

When he returned, Raf sat staring stonily ahead, face flushed, eyes lit with anger.

Yoshi sat beside him. "Your hand."

Raf thrust it out.

Yoshi quietly, thoughtfully applied antiseptic to a strip of cotton. He wasn't sure what the best way to talk about this was. Rafael wasn't an optimistic sort of boy, but Yoshi didn't want to get his hopes up too far.

He dabbed the cotton against Raf's scratched knuckle.

Raf hissed in a breath and looked away.

"The sting will pass," Yoshi said softly, though he knew Raf had hurt himself before and was used to the bite of alcohol on an open wound. He lifted Raf's hand and lightly blew on his knuckles to fight the sting.

From out of nowhere, Raf began to shudder. He jerked his hand away.

Yoshi regarded him. "Are you alright, Rafael?"

"You…" Raf drew in a loud breath. "You're…"

"I'm what?"

"You're nice." Raf stood up suddenly. His shoulders were heaving.

Yoshi frowned. "Please sit. I need to bandage your--"

Raf turned to him, and Yoshi's voice cut off entirely. Startled by the sight of tears in the boy's dark eyes and streaking down his cheeks.

"Rafael?"

"You're nice." Raf's chin shook as he spoke, and his voice was stuffed and thick. "You're the only nice…why…" He wiped at his eyes with his scratched hand. "What do you want?"

Yoshi studied him.

Raf returned his look, something burning behind his expression, something that wasn't anger. "What?"

"I don't know what you're asking me, Rafael."

Raf sniffled loudly, trying to hold back the tears. "What can I do? Can I…?" His face changed suddenly, went pale. Fear clouded him. Something had come into his mind, Yoshi saw, that terrified him.

Yoshi nearly stood, but was afraid of undoing the boy further. "Rafael, please."

Raf spoke, his voice thin and small. Scared. "I'll let you…if you want..." He swallowed a wet breath. "I'll let you fuck me."

Yoshi sat up, his chest tight. He felt cold all over.

Rafael's chin came up, brave and determined despite his tears.

"Why would you even say a thing like that?" He hardly recognized his own voice.

"It's what they want." Raf took a blind step towards him, but faltered. "It's all they want from me. If you wanted…I wouldn't even fight. Just keep me here with you. It would be okay if it was you. You're…you're nice, you wouldn't…please. I know I'm trouble and I'm bad but I would try. I wouldn't fight. I would be good." He was sobbing by then, his body shivering.

Yoshi stood.

"I would be good. I promise. You could do whatever you wanted. Please let me stay with Donnie and Mike and Leo."

Horror took his voice away. Yoshi moved to Raf, so small and young and so convincing in his rages that it was hard to remember he was just a boy.

He moved to sit on the arm of the couch beside Raf, and he opened his arms. "I would never ask that of you. Ever."

Raf seemed undone by the softness of his words, as he had been undone by the simple act of blowing on his wounds to soothe a sting. He fell into Yoshi's grasp, shaking, grasping handfuls of Yoshi's shirt.

Yoshi curled his arms around the boy. He could feel the damp warmth of tears on his shoulder. His eyes shut, and he kept from thinking too hard about anything, in case his anger bled through and Raf thought it was directed at him.

"I'm sorry," he heard himself saying as he hugged Raf's thin body. "I'm sorry that you've been so hurt."

"No one believes me," Raf said, thick against his shirt. "No one ever listens."

"I'm listening." Yoshi let his hand curl through Raf's unruly dark hair. "Say whatever you need to. I promise I'll believe you."

"No one ever…"

"I will."

Raf sniffled and drew back. His face was red, glistening with moisture. "Promise?"

Yoshi's chest thumped, hard and uncomfortable. "I promise."

Raf's fists dug into his eyes to clear them. He was quiet for a few moments. "Anything I say?"

Yoshi swallowed, simply nodding.

Raf regained some measure of bravado in his voice. False, but how often had it been false before? "If I said that sai were way cooler than any stupid swords?"

Yoshi smiled, but only because Raf wanted it. "I believe you."

"I'm a better fighter than Leo."

A sad, more sincere smile. "I believe you."

Raf drew in a breath. His eyes dropped. "One of the doctors at the foster home hurts me."

Yoshi had to fight the urge to grab the boy, to hug him and promise him it would never happen again. "I believe you, Rafael."

Raf lifted his eyes, wary, and studied him. "I fight him. Every time."

Yoshi could still see the shadow of the black eye Raf had come to practice with days ago. Raf said he was in a fight, which was too easy to believe.

He kept himself still, feeling the dark heat rising in him and worried it would scare the boy. "He's done this for…for a long time?"

Raf nodded.

"Tell me. I promise I'll listen. I promise I'll help you."

Raf swallowed. His eyes were starting to swim again, the tears streaking down his cheeks. "This man who fostered me once, he did it. He was the first. And I fought him every minute after that and he brought me back to the orphanage, and they said I was lying when I told them. Doctor Kelleran said…he told them I was lying, and when no one believed me over him he…he did it himself. He…" Raf shivered. "This stupid doll he had. I was supposed to point to where my foster dad touched me. And then he said to point on him instead of the doll, and then he wanted to be sure so he did it to me."

Yoshi's anger cycloned inside him, a tornado growing in strength with every word. The name went through his mind. Kelleran. Again and again, like a chant. Kelleran. Kelleran.

Raf wiped at his eyes again. "I told on him. He said I was just mad and making things up. He kept doing it, because no one listened to me. But I wasn't making it up. I'm not, sensei. I promise I'm not." He looked up suddenly, his eyes wide and bright through the tears. "I don't want to stay there. Can't you adopt me too? I can do…I can be good."

Yoshi stood, though it was hard to pull away from Rafael. He went to the small desk where he kept his paperwork, and he pulled off the forms from the folder open on the desktop. He moved back to Raf and held them out.

Raf took them, his hands shaking, and he looked at the top sheet.

Yoshi reached out, running his hand through Raf's hair to straighten disheveled locks. "I plan to, Rafael. Whether you behave or not."

Rafael stared down at the paper for a long time.

In the pause, Yoshi studied his bowed head. It was so easy, he realized, so easy to believe that such a thing could happen to bright, happy, angel-faced Michael. Why was it harder to believe it in the angry form of a child too small to defend himself against an adult? How many clues had Raf given, that he had overlooked because Raf was bad-tempered and sullen?

He realized with a dark wave of self-loathing that it was for those very reasons, for Rafael's dark rebelliousness, that his doctor had chosen to hurt him over the other children. It was because he knew no one would ever believe Raf.

Yoshi had fallen into his trap for two years.

Two long years. How many times in the last two years…

Raf looked up suddenly. His eyes were wide. His finger was on the top sheet, tracing his own name.

Yoshi drew in a breath. "It might take time."

Raf relaxed, as if that warning helped make the news more understandable. He clutched the papers hard enough to wrinkle them.

Yoshi couldn't look into those wide, amazed eyes for very long. "If you'd go downstairs, I need to telephone Miss Prentiss."

"Okay." His voice was soft. He handed the papers back.

Yoshi took them, and watched Raf move slowly to the door and out.

The moment Raf was gone Yoshi's calm dissolved away entirely.


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's Note - This is a quick, short chapter. This story's gonna wrap up soon. I'm debating doing a sequel. My whole intention starting out was to do one with them older, bring the Purple Dragons and April and Casey into it. This growing-up story sorta wrote itself despite me. _

_Still, I know it's an odd genre of TMNT fics to be writing, and I do have a bunch of other stories in the works. So, you know. If you wanna see older turtle-human guys (I even have pictures of what I think they look like, because I am a complete nerd), feel free to let me know._

_Oh, Natsuko! I did get your PM and totally wrote you back. But this site is doing all kinds of fun experiments with not sending alerts, so you may not have been told you had a message? Basically it was a lot of thanks and complete agreement with your critiques, and a solemn plea that if you know beta writers like the ones you described, I'd love to be introduced. You hit on the things that bug me most about my writing, but God knows I can't figure out how to fix it._

_Thanks, everyone, for the great feedback. I know it's tough giving weird AU stories like this a chance, and I appreciate it! _

* * *

"No." 

Yoshi drew in a breath. His hands fisted under the table. He let the breath out, slow and even.

"No," he echoed, slow and thoughtful, tasting the word.

Prentiss set her coffee cup down, looking more than a little annoyed at him. "No. And I've told you that before. I have a lot of work, and a lot of kids. I don't have time to investigate claims from a proven liar. Claims, I might add, that have already been investigated more than once."

"This liar you speak of is an eleven year old boy."

She laughed, and it was as hard a sound as a fist against flesh. "You've worked with some of the worst kids I know. Do you honestly think eleven year olds can't be liars?"

Yoshi shut his eyes for a half a second, finding his center. Quick and dirty, but he was able to keep himself from responding in anger. "I don't believe this eleven year old is."

"Then he's got you snowed. I'm not surprised, Yoshi. You're all about honesty and honor and whatever, and these kids can learn to manipulate anyone."

Yoshi's hands squeezed tighter. "You're talking about a boy who begged me sobbing to _rape_ him if it was the only way I would keep him with me."

She shrugged. "I've heard stories just as bad. This boy's a smart--"

"Use his name!" The words were thunder ripping through a quiet sky. Yoshi's hand came up, fist knocking on the wood of the table.

She jumped, her coffee streaking over the side and onto the table in a line like a tear.

"He is Rafael. He is a child, a boy who has begged for help for years."

"He's blamed everyone who ever cared for him. He's accused everyone but you of victimizing him."

"Perhaps because I'm the first one who hasn't!"

"Yoshi, come on!"

"No." His center was coming undone fast. "I have come to know him well in the last two years. I have seen this boy do remarkable acts of kindness for his friends. I have seen him soothe a hurting child, and I'm only ashamed that I mistook Rafael's understanding of that boy's problems for simple empathy. I have ignored and pushed aside for too long, and I will not do it now." He aimed a sharp glare across the table.

Her face hardened over her surprise at his outburst. She stood. "I'm not having this talk with you. I've explained his history. If that isn't good enough, I'm sorry."

"It's not nearly good enough." Yoshi got to his feet as well, tossing bills on the table and grabbing his coat.

She let out a frustrated breath. "I'm looking out for you, whether you believe it or not."

"That is exactly your problem. You've looked out for your friend the doctor, and the families who have taken the boy in. You look out for me. But you don't look out for Rafael, though that is supposedly your job."

"Stop right there, Yoshi. You have no idea what I've done for--"

"I am giving you the chance to fix a mistake, Miss Prentiss. I'm showing you a boy in trouble and asking for your help."

She blew out a breath, grabbing her purse from the booth. "And I'm telling you no. Someday you'll figure out what that kid is, and you'll thank me."

* * *

Leonardo found him sitting against the wall, catching his breath and shaking out aching fists - he'd clenched too tightly when he hit the bag, and he should have known better. 

He wiped sweat from his brow and stared ahead until he sensed movement and noticed his son in the doorway.

"Leonardo." He sat up straighter and motioned him in. "Why are you awake at this hour?"

Leo shrugged, moving in uncertainly. "I know there's something going on. I couldn't sleep."

Perceptive boy. Yoshi almost smiled. "I'm afraid you're right, but it's nothing we should talk about."

"Last time you snuck down here to hit the bag was when that one kid…James? When he got killed."

Yoshi winced. "That's hardly a thing you should be keeping track of, Leonardo."

"I can't stop from noticing," he answered. "Did another kid get killed?"

"No." Not yet. Yoshi rubbed at his face, tired and growing stiff. "Leonardo…" He hesitated.

This was nothing to talk to a child about. Nothing to be shared with his already too-serious son. Leonardo didn't need the weight of knowing things like this even went on in the world.

Then again, Leonardo and Michael were incredibly close these days. Leo helped Mike through nightmares and memories. Maybe Leonardo already knew.

Yoshi looked up at him, sitting back against the wall. "I am worried," he confessed finally. "And I'm afraid it's making me rather tense."

"What're you worried about?" Leo asked. He moved up and sat on the mat in front of his father, back straight, posture correct as always.

Yoshi hesitated. "You know that Michael was hurt by a very cruel adult when he was younger."

Leo nodded, solemn.

"I believe there is another adult hurting a child, yet I have no way to prove it."

Leo thought about that. "Then you have to find a way."

Yoshi smiled faintly. "Yes, that would be a proper course of action. Unfortunately I have no authority to--"

"Hang on." Leo stood up suddenly and went to the door.

Yoshi watched him go, surprised. Leo didn't usually interrupt that way.

He could hear Leo going up the stairs. He turned away from the door with a sigh. Shaking out a sore hand, he pulled himself to his feet and surveyed the dojo. Luckily, hitting the bag didn't create much of a mess. He hadn't even wrapped his knuckles. Which, of course, meant that they would bother him for days.

He stretched out, feeling soreness in his arms and wondering at it. Sometimes his anger was more than meditation and centering could handle, and he'd been known to hit the bag for hours without being aware of the passing of time.

He wondered how late it actually was.

Leo's footsteps pounding down the stairs distracted him. He turned and waited.

Leo came in, holding a familiar object in his hand. "I know we told Donnie we wouldn't go through his stuff, but I don't think he'd mind much." He held the video camera out.

Yoshi took it after a moment. "Leonardo, I don't think…"

Leo smiled. "Don't worry. Don can show Raf how it works."

Yoshi crouched, amazed eyes on his son's face. "How did you know?"

Leo shrugged. "Mikey says Raf's kind of mad is really familiar to him. And remember a long time ago when Raf told me what was wrong with Mikey? I thought it was weird that he guessed when no one else did."

"There doesn't seem to be much that escapes your notice, Leonardo." Yoshi smiled, proud of Leonardo as he was at least once a day, even after years with the boy.

Leo pinked, but his smile faded. "Is Raf really getting hurt?"

Yoshi nodded, solemn again instantly. "He is."

"Then…if we stop it, will he be less mad all the time?"

Yoshi blinked. "I would think so, yes."

"Good." Leo smiled again faintly. "Mikey says Raf helped him a lot. And Donnie says he made the kids at the orphanage leave Don alone. I think he'll be a good brother when he's not so mad."

Yoshi clapped his son on the shoulder. "I think so too, Leonardo."


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's note- almost done. One more to come after this, and I wanted to thank everyone who sat through this experiment with me. I know how easy it is to dismiss an idea like this without reading it, and I'm grateful so many people stuck with it anyway._

_Quick note - more child abuse in this section. Proceed with caution._

* * *

If the matter hadn't been more urgent, Yoshi might have worried that the whole thing was a sign he was losing his mind. He was in essence joining forces with his four eleven-year-old children to put a stop to a criminal. 

Last he checked he wasn't in a movie. He wasn't part of one of those silly television shows apparently designed for boys Leonardo's age. In the real world, there was a protocol to be followed.

Then again, as far as Yoshi knew he and his boys were the only ones in Rafael's life who hadn't failed him. So perhaps it was fitting that they should be the ones to stop this doctor, this Kelleran.

Still, it was with dubious hope that Yoshi let Don leave to return to the orphanage with his video camera stashed in his small backpack.

Rafael, only making matters less certain, was in trouble at the state home, for some fight or another no doubt, and wasn't there to talk to about it. But Don was solemn enough to fulfill the responsibility of talking to him, and intelligent enough to remember everything that had to be said.

It was a simple enough idea. Rafael bragged often enough of being able to break in and out of any spot in the home that he wished. If he could, he was to get into Kelleran's office and leave the camera positioned to catch what came before his session. He was to tell Don when that session would be, and Don would call Yoshi so he could come in for himself, be stop things before they went too far and hurt Raf worse.

God, it was a horrible plan. Too easy to see the holes in. Too much resting on two young boys. Too much like asking Rafael to let himself be raped again for the sake of a greater good.

The whole thing could fall apart far too easily, and yet. Yet the boys seemed to agree that the simplest idea was the best. That something so vague was, as Leonardo put it, easy to change depending on how things actually went.

And really, in the end, maybe a wild and unreliable plot was the way to go. Appealing to the proper channels had gotten them nowhere, so the opposite might prove successful.

In the end, really, it certainly couldn't do more damage.

* * *

Yoshi sent Don back with camera in hand on a Wednesday. On Friday, perhaps two hours before they would have come to his dojo, the call came. 

"Master Yoshi? Something's happening!" It was Don, sounding breathless and upset.

Yoshi said a silent prayer of thanks that it had come after his morning class. He stood and looked for his coat. "Be calm, Don. I will be there in a matter of--"

"No, you don't understand!" Don's voice was close, muffled, like he was hiding somewhere making the call.

Yoshi's heart began to pound. What trouble might he have brought upon his boys? "Tell me."

"I talked to Raf, but he said no. He said it was never gonna stop anyway and he didn't want anyone taping it like a pervert. And he said he wouldn't tell me when his sessions were." There was a pause.

Yoshi could hear the hesitation as loud as words. He had enough faith in Don to keep silent and wait.

"I did something…I just didn't want Raf to have to keep going through it, and if I leave when your house is ready before we can catch the guy hurting him than no one will be there to help. So I went to Miss Prentiss."

Damn. "You took her the camera?"

"She said she could help. She took it." Don sounded breathless again just like that. "But she never did tell me what to do, and now Raf's going in right now and I'm worried maybe she didn't get a chance to do anything yet."

Crumbling. All of it. That's what came of shoddy planning. Yoshi knew that, damn it, why did he try to trust his basest instincts this one time, when it was most important…

He shook the thoughts away. "I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Should I wait for you?"

Yoshi grimaced. Leave Rafael alone with the man or leave himself with no idea where to go when he got there?

"Trust your instinct, Don."

Just the briefest pause, and then a sudden determination firmed Don's voice. "I gotta go."

Yoshi hung the phone up and turned.

Mike and Leo stood in the doorway from downstairs.

"Father? What's going on?"

"Never mind. I've got to go out for a few minutes. You remember the rules when you're here alone?"

"We're coming too."

"You most certainly are not."

Leo's arms folded over his thin chest. "It was our idea, we should be there."

"Leo, this isn't a joke!" Yoshi grabbed his keys from his desk and moved to the door. "This isn't some adventure. We're talking about the safety of--"

"Our brother!" Mike stuck his chin in the air, his hands fists at his side. "And he needs our help."

Yoshi frowned at him, and at Leonardo.

When he passed them to go down the stairs, they thundered down after him. "We're coming, dad!"

"Father, we already know what to expect. We can--"

Yoshi cut Leo off by turning back to them as he pushed the front door open. "Under absolutely no circumstances are you to leave the car when we get there."

They rushed past him without a word in answer.

* * *

It was part of his sick routine that the doc liked the play his little games with Rafael and then have an entire sit-down-and-let's-talk-it-out session afterwards. The doc liked to talk down to him, twist his words, make Raf try to think he'd imagined what had just frigging happened. 

But Raf thought the real reason was so that when Raf left his office he wouldn't have all that fight still in him.

"I can't decide if you're stubborn or if you just lack common sense."

Raf gasped out a breath as he was shoved down over the side of Kelleran's desk.

Maybe that was the real reason. So the sweat had time to cool and the bruises could fade a little.

He tried to kick behind him, but Kelleran knew what to expect and moved in fast, pinning Raf's smaller legs against the desk using his own.

Kelleran kept talking, as mild as if they were in the middle of a damned session. "You can't accept reality, Rafael. Don't I always tell you that? You know how this reality always ends up, yet you fight it."

Raf jerked and arched, but Kelleran was just too big. Fully grown and big and his round, soft belly was wide enough to press him against the desk, the papers and family pictures and the commendations and everything else they kept giving this liar.

"I'm teaching you a lesson here, Rafael." Kelleran's voice was a murmur now.

Raf shut his eyes, gritting his teeth. He knew the touch was coming a moment before Kelleran's hand came around him and fumbled over his jeans, grabbing at his crotch clumsily through the denim.

Raf reared back - he always fought it, and he always, always would - but Kelleran had him pinned too well. He felt fingers jerking his pants down, and he slammed his eyes shut and wanted to cry. Wanted to sob and beg and plead, but fuck if he would ever beg this man for anything.

The harsh, tin sound of a zipper being pulled down behind him, and Raf shuddered and growled. His hand clawed around the closest picture and he hurled it behind him. It shattered on the ground somewhere, missing its target.

"The more your fight the less they'll ever listen." Kelleran still murmured, hardly bothered by the destruction. "You should listen to me, Rafael. What I'm doing is for your own good."

Raf's eyes were shedding tears without his permission. He wanted to shout but all that came out was a whimper. His body knew what was coming and he braced all over, ready to be split apart.

The door to the office flew open.

Kelleran jerked up and away so fast that Raf stayed on his stomach for a moment in sheer surprise. He looked up.

Yoshi.

Oh, God. It was him.

His face was beat red and twisted in a look so dark and dangerous that Raf was shocked, but it was _Yoshi_ and he slid off the desk and stumbled back, too overwhelmed with relief to speak.

Yoshi was there. Yoshi saw. Yoshi believed.

Behind Yoshi Don came in, scared and scanning the room with those quick gray eyes.

Raf stumbled over the desk chair and dropped into it, and only then did he remember to grab at his jeans and pull them back up.

Don was there in a flash. "Raf! Raf, are you okay? I didn't know what to do and I called but it took him so long to get here and I didn't want to just stand out there while…"

"Who are you?" Kelleran's voice cut Don off, and they both looked over.

Yoshi had Kelleran cornered against the bookcase where all his big heavy important medical books were crammed.

Kelleran sounded mad, but he sounded scared too.

Raf figured if Yoshi was looking at him like that he'd be scared too.

"I am Rafael's father," Yoshi answered in a voice as hissing and cold as dry ice.

Something in Raf's chest caved to hear those words, and he felt moisture dripping down from his eyes again. Yoshi did care. God, he did believe. He was right there. Raf was so used to scorn that he just didn't know how to feel.

Kelleran didn't question the words. He was fumbling at his slacks, trying to cover up all the pale flabby skin he'd had shoved up against Raf. "You don't understand. Just hold on a moment, and I'll--"

"Hold on?" Yoshi's voice filled the room, blasted against the walls and echoed back. "Hold on while you dress yourself? I understand perfectly." With the last word his arms flew out, shoving at Kelleran's hands, keeping him from fastening his pants.

Raf heard footsteps and looked over, and saw Mike and Leo crowded in the doorway, shock in their eyes. Mike was white as a sheet, his eyes on Kelleran. Leo looked from Raf to Yoshi, twitching like he wanted to go in but wasn't sure what to do.

"There can be no one on this earth lower than a man who would harm a child. A troubled child trusted to his care." Yoshi came at Kelleran like a predator, all soft footsteps and still body and unmoving eyes.

"I am a professional," Kelleran answered, almost convincing except for the fear in his eyes and the pants hanging at his knees. "I was putting the boy through an exercise that--"

"You would lie to me?" Yoshi lunged at him, hands slamming against his shoulders and driving him back into the bookcase. "You would deny what I have seen for myself? You think I would believe you over my own child?"

"Rafael has always been a liar," Kelleran fired back. Even with Yoshi holding him against the bookshelf he was reaching down, trying to grab his slacks to pull them up.

Yoshi didn't stand for that. His arm snapped out, elbow planted against Kelleran's chest, holding him straight back. "Stop! You wanted my boy to see your nakedness, you will suffer me to see it as well. You will suffer the police finding you this way when they arrive."

Kelleran's face was getting pastier by the second. "You don't understand," he said again, feeble.

"No." Yoshi was talking through his teeth. "I don't understand why. I don't understand how you could ever come to do something so repulsive to someone so fragile. What I do understand is what I walked in on, and what I would have walked in on had I waited another thirty seconds."

Raf could only see his sensei's profile, but he watched raptly. He memorized.

This was what it looked like to be helped.

"But I do understand what you are. A monster, a depraved, deformed criminal. The worst of humanity."

"Let me go." Kelleran looked past Yoshi at the boys. "Let me go. There are children--"

"Don't speak to me of children!" Yoshi's arm flew back and forward, and his fist buried in Kelleran's gut.

Kelleran whimpered, as pathetic as any kid. His face went from grey to red. He would have doubled over if Yoshi hadn't been holding him to the shelves.

Raf made a faint noise. He wasn't sure what it was - maybe the tears, or maybe just a burst of sheer joy at the sight.

Whatever it was, it made Don's huge eyes come back to him. "Are you okay?"

Raf nodded shakily, not taking his eyes off the two adults.

Yoshi glanced back, drawn by Don's voice. His wild eyes skittered over the two of them, then his two other sons, standing just inside the doorway.

Something of his anger seemed to bubble. "I told you not to come in."

None of them spoke.

Leo and Mike moved, as if drawn by the same thought, to the desk. To Raf in the chair. Leo's hand came out and dropped on Raf's shoulder and they stood around him.

Yoshi's eyes glittered, and he turned back to Kelleran. "My children are present. Cover yourself."

Kelleran grabbed his pants instantly, yanking them up. His hands fumbled, shaking too hard to fasten them. "It was an exercise," he said, stumbling over the words. "I was teaching him. You didn't see enough. You don't understand."

"Enough?" Yoshi growled, looking like he forgot his kids instantly. His arm lifted from Kelleran's chest to his throat.

Kelleran's eyes went wide and round, and tears misted from them. "Wait!"

But Yoshi didn't look like he was pressing too hard. "Enough? Enough to what? Convince police? Convince myself?"

"I have helped hundreds of children through the years. That boy is--" He cut off, maybe remembering that Yoshi actually cared about Raf, instead of every other adult who seemed to hate him.

Yoshi's arm pressed in just a little. Just enough to make Kelleran gasp and go ramrod straight against the bookcase.

"That boy is what?"

Kelleran shook his head, quick and panicked.

Yoshi leaned in more. "What is he?" When Kelleran still didn't answer he raised his voice, almost a shout. "Tell me!"

"Yoshi!"

Raf jerked and turned, and his heart sank. Prentiss.

Prentiss wouldn't believe any of it. She would tell on Yoshi like he was a bad guy. And Raf was dressed again and so was Kelleran and maybe none of this even mattered. Maybe it was still just their word against the doc.

Yoshi, though, if he was thinking any of that, didn't so much as twitch. "Miss Prentiss. I'd assumed you would join us."

"Yoshi, let him go."

"This man is everything my boy has said he is."

"We'll see."

Yoshi hesitated at that, peeling his glare from Kelleran's face. "We'll see?"

Prentiss moved in, not even looking at the four of them at the desk. She went to the shelf in front of the desk and stood on tip-toes, reaching and pulling down--

Raf's eyes shot to Don. "That's yours! I told you--"

Don just shrugged. "It's proof."

Raf's words cut off. His eyes went back to Prentiss.

Kelleran was making a high kind of noise against Yoshi's arm. "Melinda! What is that?"

She regarded him. "This is a video recorder set on a motion timer. It's recorded you whenever you were at that desk since yesterday afternoon, when I put it in here at the request of one of my children."

Raf glanced at Don.

He smiled tentatively.

"You put that here to spy on me!"

She stared at Kelleran. "I put this here to exonerate you! Ted, do you think I for a moment ever believed those stories he told? Do you think I would have let you deal with these kids for another minute if I thought…" She trailed off, her face losing color. She looked down at the camera in her hands. "What's on this tape, Ted?"

"God, Melinda. You don't understand." Kelleran broke down, tears sliding down his face. "It's not something I want to do. It's a sickness."

She looked like she wasn't breathing. "Oh my God."

"It's a disease! It was that boy who started it. He…Melinda, I need help!"

She looked from him to Yoshi.

Yoshi, arm still against Kellerman's throat, only not pushing at him, returned her gaze. "The police have already been called."

She swallowed. "Good."

"Melinda! Wait! You don't unders--"

"Say that one more time, you evil bastard." Yoshi's arm flexed.

Prentiss shook her head and moved to the desk. Without looking at any of them, she set the camera down in front of Raf. She turned back to Yoshi, pale and miserable looking.

"Yoshi. I…"

"Whatever mistakes you made, you can start correcting them now."

She nodded. "I will. But let him go. Whatever he deserves, don't give him leverage to use against you."

Yoshi's eyes went back to Kelleran, as if considering the idea.

"You have these…these four boys to care for." Her voice was weird and pinched, like she was holding her nose or something. "Think of them."

Yoshi stepped back suddenly, releasing Kelleran.

Kelleran slid down with a thump to the floor, still crying all over himself.

Yoshi turned, but when he came to them he moved right past her and to Raf, crouching beside the chair. "Are you alright?"

Raf nodded, wide-eyed as he looked at his sensei. "Thank you," he said, but for some reason his voice broke off and crumbled all over the place, and he started crying as hard as Kelleran.


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note - Okay. This is not the ending I think most people expect. It's not the happy ending you might hope for. Nothing like it. It would be easy to write that, skim over the issues I raised and make it seem like everything's happy ever after, but I do try for a realism when I write. When something happens, that something has consequences. _

_The consequences of child abuse aren't pretty. Not for anyone involved. _

_So, that's your warning. This is the end of this story, but as I said there is a sequel already formed in my head, and hopefully it'll get written. Even I don't want to leave things like this. _

_ Thanks again to everyone for coming on this ride with me. _

* * *

"Master Yoshi! Yoshi!" 

Yoshi's eyes opened as Don burst into the room. He sat up, blinking into the light that came through from the hallway. "Don? What's wrong?"

A million scenarios instantly came and went. Someone dead. Someone hurt. Someone gone. A million worries, different for each child; that unexpected consequence of finding himself a parent.

"It's Raf and Leo! It's bad!"

Yoshi was out of bed in a flash, and following Don down the hallway.

He had thought to ease the boys' transition into one large family in one new house by splitting them up. Leo and Mike together, since they were used to sharing a room. And Raf and Don across the hall. But ease didn't seem to be a factor in this transition. Not in any way.

Maybe the place was too small. It was all he could afford with four boys to take care of. Bigger than most of them were used to, but crowded all the same.

Maybe Raf and Leo had never been intended to get along. Things had always been tense between them. Leo's ease at including Raf in their family had always been phrased as a good thing for Don and Mike. Never for him.

Whatever it was, it was harder and harder to keep them from fighting. Harder to keep those fights from elevating.

Don was pale and scared, and Mike stood out in the hall, staring with sick eyes into his and Leo's room.

Yoshi moved past them and into the small bedroom. "What is…"

Pure shock stopped him.

Rafael had Leonardo pushed on the bed and was sprawled on top of him. His hand was beneath Leo, clumsily groping, and Leo's pajamas were tugged off his hip on one side.

Yoshi flew to the bed, grabbing Rafael and hauling him bodily off Leonardo. "What do you think you're doing?"

Rafael fought him instantly, jerking and shoving in unthinking panic. "Get off! Let go let go _let go_!" He wriggled free and took off, running out of the room and into his own, slamming the door hard.

Yoshi forgot him for the moment, moving to the bed and crouching. "Leonardo?"

Leo's face was white. He scrambled to get his pajamas straight, tears threatening in his eyes. His voice was a thin ramble. "He said he was gonna show me how it felt. He said he was gonna hurt me."

Yoshi's hand came out, wiping at tears from his normally strong, placid son. "Are you alright?"

Leo drew in a breath, and for a moment seemed to gather himself. But when he spoke, the words burst out and his face crumbled. "I hate him! I hate him and he keeps doing things and you never stop him! I don't want him here anymore!"

Yoshi's spine went stiff. "Do you mean to tell me he's done this before?"

Leo shuddered, but shook his head. "Not this but he's always angry. He won't leave me alone."

"Has he threatened this? Made suggestion…?"

Leo hesitated. "No."

Yoshi drew in a breath, looking behind him at his other two boys, wide-eyed and silent in the hall looking in. "Mike? Please come here."

Mike came in slowly, and Yoshi frowned to see that haunted, pale look on his face that Mike got after nightmares about his past.

Yoshi was going to ask him to sit with his brother, but Mike didn't have to be asked. Once he was in the room he went right to the bed and crawled up beside Leo.

Shaking, Leo curled away from Yoshi into Mike.

Mike put his arms around his brother.

Yoshi lay a hand on Leo's arm. "I'll be back shortly. Stay with Mike."

Leo nodded but didn't look at him.

Yoshi moved to the door, resting a hand lightly on Don's shoulder as he passed him. He opened Raf and Don's door and peered inside. "Rafael."

"Go away."

Yoshi shut the door and moved further in. He could barely see the lump on Raf's bed, under covers against the wall. He reached behind him and turned the light on with a sigh. "Rafael, come out of there."

"Why? So I can pack my stuff and get kicked out?"

Yoshi sat on the bed, shoulders slumped.

It was too much for him. He grew into being a parent by raising Leonardo, a boy who could probably have raised himself. Even after years working with children he had no idea how to resolve these problems.

Rafael needed more help than he could give. That much was clearer every day. Removing him from his abusers had done nothing to calm his anger. It seemed to make it worse in a lot of ways.

For that, Yoshi was to blame. A haphazard plan, his sons following him. Exposing Rafael, even in rescue, to staring eyes.

Rafael seemed caught. Stuck between feeling rescued and feeling betrayed. Between being glad he was away from the orphanage and furious that he was stuck in a house with four people who had seen him humiliated with his abuser.

And Yoshi knew he was to blame. It was one of many reasons why he couldn't easily give up on Rafael.

He reached out and pulled at the cover, revealing Raf's tousled hair and tear-stained face. "I said come out of there," he repeated, firm.

Raf shoved the covers off and sat up, pushed into the corner.

"Rafael, what have I told you about being my son?"

Raf hesitated. He spoke quietly. "You said you wouldn't let anyone hurt me again."

Yoshi nodded. "Nobody hurts my sons. Not even my other sons."

Raf's head dropped. His shoulders shook.

"What you were doing in there…Rafael, you know how bad that was."

"I--"

"I would never," Yoshi continued, low and steady, "give up on you. I will never send you from me, Rafael. But I will not tolerate my sons living in fear of abuse, even from you."

Rafael was quiet.

Yoshi studied the top of his bent head. He was out of his depth, that much was certain. He was stuck trying to find ways to save Rafael from self-destruction, but he couldn't seem to do that without his other sons being hurt.

He needed advice. He needed help, but he had no idea whom to call. He might have tried Melinda Prentiss, but she wouldn't have spoken with him - he had demanded, when suing for custody of Raf and seeing to it that Kellaran was prosecuted fully for his years of abuse, that Prentiss also be fired.

She was well-meaning, perhaps, but she wasn't fit for the job required of her. She was too burned out, too hardened to the cries of children. He had demanded she leave, and she had quit before his claims were fully investigated.

But that left him without an ally, even a bitter and careless one.

It was just him and his boys. And he wasn't sure that would be enough.

Yoshi drew in a breath and released it. "Do you wish to grow up to become like Kelleran?"

Raf jolted as if shocked. "What? No! I would never be like him!"

"Why? He attacks helpless children."

Raf's eyes went to the closed doorway that pointed right to Leo and Mike's room.

Yoshi regarded his profile.

Raf looked away, his eyes dropping. "Everyone attacks someone. Why should I always be the victim?"

"That's a very limited view of things, Rafael."

"You think so?" Raf laughed, harsh and too old for an eleven-year-old. "You think Kelleran was the only one who did something?"

Yoshi hesitated. "You've told me your foster father once--"

"Oh, not him. Adults don't count. Adults always hurt."

Yoshi winced. Too much in Raf was hurt, Too much was soured, and it might be that there was no…

He sat up suddenly, struck. "If you're not talking about adults who are you talking about?"

"Come on. I lived in a place with a hundred other kids. Some of them were older and a lot of them were bigger, and…everyone knew they could do whatever they wanted to me and it would always be my fault. Everyone knew it." He drew in a breath and released it. "After a while they called me Psycho, 'cause I just started jumping people before they had a chance to come after me. And it wasn't…not everyone, but a few…"

Yoshi dropped his eyes, considering that new information. Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised. Perhaps this orphanage had been too much like a prison, with all the horrors and depravities prison had to offer.

It was hard for him to assume that about children, though. Hard for him to assume evil of anyone.

It seemed to be much easier for Raf to take for granted the bad in everyone.

Raf looked at Yoshi. "We're all living together now. I know the rest of them…they all like each other and everything, but things change. Leo already acts like he's in charge, and…and it's always that kind of…of kid who likes to hurt people to prove he's the boss."

"Leonardo strikes you as malevolent in that way?"

"Doesn't matter what Leo strikes me as. He'll come after me."

Yoshi rubbed his temple. "And rather than give him a chance to prove himself different you decided you would attack him first. You decided to show him you were in charge by…what, Rafael?"

Raf looked away instantly.

Yoshi didn't tiptoe around it. "You wanted to rape him."

"No!"

"What you were doing in there, what would it have led to?"

"I…I don't know. I just…he said…"

Yoshi spoke softly. "You told me after I first met you that you wouldn't ever hit something that can't hit back. Leonardo regards you as a brother. It goes against his code of honor to strike a brother. He would never hurt you."

Raf's face collapsed. Fresh tears went down his cheeks, unstopped.

Yoshi didn't reach out to him. "He can't hit back, Rafael."

"I'm sorry!" The words were a soft wail. Raf's hands covered his face. "He made me angry, and I couldn't…I couldn't stop from…"

Anger. It all came back to anger with Rafael. Anger was a fierce opponent to face, Yoshi knew. He wasn't sure Raf had the will to defeat an enemy like that.

"How could Leonardo ever make you angry enough to do what you were doing?"

Raf looked up, but after a moment looked away.

He wouldn't say, Yoshi knew. In Raf's mind that was like tattling. In the hierarchy of unforgivable faults, tattling on other children topped Raf's list, though apparently attacking them wasn't even in the top ten.

Yoshi sighed. "I'm going to find you a counselor."

"No!"

The instant terror on Raf's face made Yoshi soften. He lay his hand on the boy's shoulder. "We will do it together. I understand you're scared of the idea." Kelleran still held a special place in Yoshi's mind, a dark place that actually scared Yoshi because of what he was capable of doing in reaction. Bad enough for a man to commit that sort of deed, but a counselor of children…

"I will let you make decisions about it. If you would be more comfortable with a woman, we will find a woman. If you want me to be there, I'm sure it can be arranged. But we can't go on like this."

Raf sniffled, terror firm in his eyes.

Yoshi sighed. "I can't simply threaten you with what I would do if this happens again. I can't let it happen again. Do you understand that?"

Raf nodded.

"If you wish to be my son, I must be allowed to be your father. You must listen to me, and you have to trust me."

Raf's mouth tightened and he looked away.

Yoshi knew he couldn't expect too much at once. He had broken Raf's trust already, and though he had done it to save the boy it was still an obstacle they both had to overcome. For Raf, trusting adults would never come easily.

Yoshi sighed. "Come with me."

He stood.

Rafael stared up at him from his corner. "What? Where?"

Yoshi held out a hand. "Come. We will not leave things like this tonight."

Raf uncurled himself, slow and stiff. He followed Yoshi to the hallway as if they were going back to the orphanage, or some other place of horror.

Mike and Leo sat on Leo's bed where Yoshi had left them. Leo looked calmer, and was talking to a still-pale Mike quietly.

But the words stopped when Yoshi appeared, and the two boys looked past him at Raf.

Don, standing by the door, went to Raf. "You okay?"

Mike spoke fast, his small voice outraged. "Is _he_ okay? Who cares if he's--"

"Michael." Yoshi spoke firmly. "Enough."

Mike didn't listen. "He hurt Leo! He's as bad as that doctor!"

Raf winced, his eyes dropping.

"He's as bad as…as…"

"I'm sorry," Raf said to the floor.

Mike glared at him. "That's what they always say, isn't it? That's what my foster dad used to say to me, every time!"

"Leave him alone!" Don stood beside Raf, uncharacteristically angry. "Leo was being mean to him and you know it!"

Yoshi blinked. Raf never said why he was so angry.

His eyes went to Leo.

Leo was already looking up at him, as if expecting the question.

Don looked between them, his hands fists. "Tell him what you said, Leo!"

Leonardo might have kept his mouth shut, but he had never been the type of boy to evade accepting responsibility for his own actions. He spoke, soft but steady. "I said…I told him maybe he wanted that man to…to fuck him, just so he could brag about knowing what sex was like."

Yoshi's breath caught in his chest.

Leo swallowed. "I was mad, and Raf was being a jerk, and…"

Yoshi moved to the bed, a hand on Raf's shoulder to bring him with him.

Mike glared at Raf, but Leo just watched him, wide-eyed.

Raf's eyes went to Mike, defensive. "You remember David? The night janitor? He said that same thing to me once. That was just the start."

Mike's throat worked. His eyes dropped.

Yoshi crouched between them. "Leonardo, you know you spoke hurtful and untrue words."

Leo nodded. "I'm sorry."

Raf lifted his head, looking at Leo in shock at the apology.

He had been expecting, Yoshi assumed, hatred. Anger like Mike was radiating, or contempt. It was high time Rafael started learning what being in a real family, in Yoshi's family, was like.

Yoshi's eyes went to Raf. "You realize that no words are ever enough to justify an attack on your brothers. Not with fists, and absolutely not the way you attacked tonight."

Raf's eyes stayed locked on Leo. He held his breath and nodded. The words came up, slow and rasping like air from a tire. "I'm sorry." Like a dam bursting, more words followed quickly. "I couldn't even stop myself and I know it's no excuse, and I know I'm as bad as Kelleran, but I don't want to be. I won't hurt you, Leo. I promise. I won't hurt you again."

Leo looked back at him, almost impassive. "Shouldn't make promises you don't know you can keep."

"Rafael, tell Leonardo how we're going to fix this."

Raf swallowed. "Yoshi says I'm going to a counselor so nobody has to be scared of me anymore."

"Leonardo?"

Leo studied Raf. He frowned, but looked away without argument. "Fine."

Yoshi saw too much there - the remnants of anger. The echoes of the words Leo spoke earlier: that he hated Rafael at times and wanted him gone. "Is there more Rafael can do?"

Leo blinked, looking back at first Yoshi, then Raf.

Raf met his gaze, almost eager. "I will. Anything. I can...you can have..." He stopped, painful realization that he had nothing to give showing on his face. He opened his mouth, then shut it, then stuck his chin up and spoke. "You can take my sai from me."

Leonardo's eyes widened in surprise.

Yoshi felt surprise of his own. He knew those weapons and Raf's growing skill with them were incredibly important to Raf. Then again, he also knew that Leonardo, dedicated to his craft and fiercely protective about his swords, would appreciate that offer more than anything else Raf could have said.

Sure enough, Leo managed a small smile. "That's okay."

There would be nothing easy about this family, Yoshi reflected as he dropped to sit down beside Leo on the bed.

They had good days. A lot of them. Days when all four of them were like partners in crime, when they trained together and played afterwards and Yoshi believed it might all work out.

Days like this, though, he had no idea. And the uncertainty scared him.

He gestured for Raf, and slowly Raf climbed onto the bed on Yoshi's other side.

"I'm sorry, Leo," Raf said again, barely louder than a whisper. "I'm sorry, Mikey."

Leo nodded. Mike didn't answer.

Yoshi looked out at his fourth son. "Don?"

Don moved up, sitting beside Raf as Mike was still hovering over Leo on the other side.

Four turtles from a jar, broken in a sewer. Yoshi took the time now and then to be amazed by it all. The years had gone so fast, and time had damaged each of them in their own ways.

Fate made them what they were. Fate brought them back together. Yoshi placed a lot of trust in fate.

And it was almost impossible to believe in fate without also believing in hope. Frail, easily broken but rarely dying, hope was as strong a concept as fate. And it was all he had to trust his children to, as they tried to salvage what they had become and make from it a family.

He drew in a breath, his boys gathered around him. And as a beginning, a way to soothe the wounds he couldn't yet heal, he started to tell them a story, though he didn't know how he would end it.

"In Japan, many years ago, a rat lived as pet to a noble, honorable man…"

* * *

end 


End file.
